


Red Light Romance

by articulatez



Category: Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Burglary, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama & Romance, Drug Use, F/M, Minor Character Death, Murder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Oral Sex, Post-Canon, Prostitution, Public Sex, Rage, Rough Sex, Scheming, Stabbing, Surgery, Unrealistic Portrayals of Mental Illness, Zydrate (Repo!)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-08-22 16:07:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16601201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/articulatez/pseuds/articulatez
Summary: A chance encounter with a ghost from his past could create unexpected consequences in his life. Written in 2011.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this was updated online from the beginning of August 2011 until it was finished in November of the same year. I'm giving it a second home here. Let me know what you think!

Red lights flickered on in an echo ringing through the quickly darkening block. Night fell, and women (and the occasional man) from thirteen to forty woke up to prowl the streets, switch on their lights, and call for passers by to try their bodies on for size. Windows displayed them in black or nothing at all, their movements altered by sleep and Zydrate. Zydrate, the other product that ran in these gutters as abundantly as rain; sex bought surgery, and surgery warranted well-earned relief from pain, and that meant Z. Once a body took that first hit of blue salvation, they were damned to a cycle of sex and addiction. Life had made addicts of them all, the scalpel sluts and those who courted them for the night.

Red, also, was the marinara that slopped from his sister's dinner plate onto Luigi's immaculate sleeve. She'd done it on purpose. The slut wasn't a slob. He'd noticed eventually and stormed out in a rage, threatening to pin her with the drycleaning bill. His rage carried him to this unfamiliar street as he picked and pulled furiously at the stained fabric. It could be washed, scrubbed, bleached- didn't matter. It wasn't fixable. His sister hadn't cooled it just because she was in love with what's-his-name. It had made her worse. He loved his sis, but she was a thorny bitch.

Where the fuck was he? He'd ended up in a lonely street with ramshackle apartments, the windows blacked out and shuttered. A street light set the stage for an encounter on the edge of an alley, starring a louse in a fishnet shirt pestering a dame, pawing her. He was a trashy panhandler angling for her goods. She tried to get him to leave her alone by acting bored and tired, and then too busy to give him the time of day. Luigi couldn't see her very well. She was a blue dress and black can't-run-away boots to him. She caught him watching her and gave a wave.

"Oh! My friend's here, I have to leave," she attempted coolly. He would've said she was suave except that the word was masculine and she was.. not. And, shit, did she mean him? He was aghast and made a face at her showing what he thought of that. She widened her eyes at him in mock shock, and he didn't catch what the guy said in response when she failed to elbow past him, but he did hear her outraged voice call, "Hey, don't say that about him! He's no pussy."

A vein jumped to life in his neck as all the sound in the area was numbed by the noise in his head, and the white hot rage burned his eyeballs through his skull. "WHAT?" Luigi yelled, storming up to the worm who dared insult him. The knife jumped between his itching fingers, and he shoved the guy to the wall, stabbing him as he screamed and screamed. The blood splashed and splattered from the artery he'd punctured, no fabric to soak it up. It was filthy, disgusting. Luigi recoiled as the red caught his shirt and hands, and the wretch slumped, whimpering.

"Shh," the woman said, kicking him aside. He crumpled to his side, stuffing a gloved hand to the deepest of his wounds. "You'll live if you can stop whining."

Luigi wiped his hands off on his shirt, but that only switched the location of the mess. It was still there. "Damn it," he grumbled, noting the blood under his neatly trimmed nails.

She observed him struggling for a moment only before stepping in and taking the knife from his hand. She stooped to grab the injured man's cap and used it to take the blood off the blade. "He was a bleeder," she said. "Thanks."

"Yeah, well." He snatched the knife back from her and clicked it shut, shoved it in his pocket. He twitched, the compulsion to rip, to tear off his bloody shirt digging insistently.

"That's really bothering you, isn't it?"

"What?" He scowled at her.

"The blood on your shirt. I know the feeling. Hey, at least you aren't one of those weirdos who gets off on that. Say, did you want your dues? I could let you have a go... free." She ran her hands down her stomach to her thighs, emphasizing the point. Oh, a whore. She wasn't the trashy fuck-in-the-streets type.

"The last thing I need is a random whore throwing herself at me."

She hmphed in cute annoyance. "Don't tell me you don't recognize me!"

He looked her over. She was on the shrimpy side, but she carried herself with a taller person's confidence, an easy swagger in her stance. Her dark eyes smoldered, neatly bordered with liner the same deep blue as her dress. Her throat was weighted down with chains and a black ribbon choker. There wasn't a crease or stain on her, and her curly, chestnut hair was clean and lightly tousled. But he didn't have a clue who she was, and unless she was a laundress, he didn't really care.

"How the fuck should I know?" he snapped.

"Okay. Why don't we get indoors and take care of your shirt. My place isn't far from here." She nodded up at the adjacent apartment building and reached for the fire escape with both arms. She was short and somehow managed to swing herself up without help, all on her own. She leaned back, and the ladder creaked ominously.

"I don't know," he said, but he was wavering. Clean clothes. New shirt. Hot _damn_ was that tempting, and he could score some on top of that.

"I was going to make some coffee," she added over her shoulder, and that was it. Color him sold.

She walked up, giving him a great view when she finally bent to unlock and open her window. She offered to help him in, but he recoiled at the touch. He wasn't helpless.

"Not decaf?" he asked, just checking. He wasn't gonna waste his time with that shit.

"That wouldn't do me any good," she scoffed. "I need a little help to stay awake. Come on, move it. The cold's getting in."

No shit. That's what happens when you leave the window open, lady. But he gritted his teeth and squeezed in, finding that he really preferred to enter places the usual way, by the front door. From the inside, he could tell it was a hooker's crib. Stringed lights were unevenly hung along the walls, and the main piece of furniture was a bed, big and red and strewn with pillows arranged in a way that made one want to ruin the arrangement. Preferably by making a girl's head slam against them repeatedly. A half-wall hid the makeshift kitchen, a sink and kerosene stove.

"Is this a dump or a shoebox?" Luigi said derisively.

"It's home. I've made it mine." She cranked up the radiator, which didn't seem to respond. "You know?"

"No."

"Let me see it," she said, holding out her hand. "Your shirt."

He gratefully tore it off and gave it up. She filled the sink with water and dropped the cloth in. Red clouded the water. He restlessly paced the compact place. It was tiny, a mousehole for a mousewhore. She unclipped her jewelry, setting it all to rest on an unfinished wood crate that served as an endtable. Without the distracting accessories, he could see that her skin was unscarred and smooth, and white as ivory. The radiator groaned to life, exhaling heat into the chilly apartment. He waited impatiently. She was intent on keeping her back to him, gliding about and ignoring him like she hadn't asked him up.

"Lady, I am not in the mood for guessing games," he brayed. "Who are you?"

She pinched her cheek, posing childishly in the mirror beside her dresser. A blot of color was left behind. The contrast of little girl and little whore confused him. "We both lost our dads that night. I've never forgotten you, Luigi."

"Wallace?" he croaked. He felt naked. Shit, where _was_ he? Yeah, straighten the hair and take off the makeup, and it was her. Last time he'd seen her, she was covered in blood and pointing a gun at his pop.

Father had been buried and he'd pretty much moved on. So what if he burst out in uncontrollable sobs at inopportune moments? He wasn't ashamed. Not half as much as Amber said he should be. Between Amber the Zydrate-zapped slut and Pavi the irredeemable freak, Luigi was the fuckin' picture of mental health. The kid had disappeared off their radar, and none of them gave two shits. She was no one. A nobody.

She was Nathan's daughter like he was Rotti's son, and he'd helped take Nathan out with a hapless smile and a quick slice. He'd help cut Repo Man down, and he'd been happy to do it for his dad. Obviously that was before he learned that the man had planned to cut his kids out of their inheritance. But the girl had reduced herself to this? Luigi had a moral compass that pointed due North. Hers was broken, if she was good with being a slut, and especially if she was good _at_ being a slut.

"Yeah. Nice to meet you again." She grabbed a tissue from a box and kissed her lipstick away with loud smacks, imitation kissy noises. "So, what do you say? I mean it. Free, every second, for however long you want to take of my time."

"I say... I say forget it! Look what's happened to you. You're fucking pathetic. Slut."

"If that's how you feel." She faced him. Strangely, she didn't look disappointed or angry that he wasn't gonna fuck the daylights out of her and that instead he'd insulted her. She was smirking. "I would've stabbed him myself if I had a nice penknife. It's hard to hide my kitchen knife in my garter."

"So? What's your point?"

"I saw you and knew you'd be armed. I used you because it was convenient for me, and I'd hate for you to feel cheated. Let me make it up to you."

"Nuh-uh, whore. Sit your ass down; don't you try to stop me." He stepped to the door, opened it. Undisturbed, she picked up a lighter and lit a candle just to watch it burn with calm fascination. He held the door as it was, and she looked over.

He stayed there, then closed the door slowly like it pained him. She snuffed out the flame and licked the tips of her fingers delicately. It couldn't have singed her. He'd pinched out enough matches to know it didn't hurt. He knew it, but he couldn't help but notice her pink tongue flicking out to touch her fingers. She walked to him, reaching around his body to replace the chain over the door. She was smart enough to have a lock.

He shoved her against the wall easily, hands gripping her shoulders. Her eyes lit up. She liked it rough, did she? Oh, this was going to be all kinds of fun. She offered up her wrists, and he took them, pinned her hands above her head.

"When's the last time you let a pretty girl like me please you?" she asked sultrily.

"You kiddin'? Women line up for me to have a go at them." But he knew a difference when he saw one, when he touched it. "Not like you, Wallace." She moved her head forward, and before he could stop it, she'd kissed him, and her tongue flashed between his lips. She didn't taste like blood, Zydrate, mint, wine, cigarettes, chocolate, any of the things he was accustomed to when it came to women's saliva.

He was mildly repulsed when he thought of what she was: a cum-guzzling hooker. He broke away. "You're a whore?"

She shrugged as best she could with her arms restrained. "It pays the bills and I like it. Mostly I give lap dances."

He was awkward, unsure where to go from there, so she took the upper hand, tracing his scars with a blue nail before following with her tongue. "Mechanical - ngh - ticker," he mumbled as she kissed the line arcing high on his chest. No words but a smug smile that made him feel dumb for talking, she led him to the bed and pushed him down. She unzipped her dress down the back and eased it off her shoulders, stepping carefully out of the pooled fabric. The last time he'd seen her like this, she was covered in the blood of Geneco's former songbird. In ripped tights held up by garters and a corset that squeezed her flesh, Wallace stopped looking like a little girl. Neither did she seem bored by the routine of fucking strangers or strung out.

Her hair was her own, chopped to her shoulders and undyed. No stripes of neon weaving through. She pounced on the bed, yipping like a territorial dog, and crawled over him, her body rubbing and wiggling, the nice sensations of soft fabric on tender skin making him spring to life. He stopped worrying about work, his siblings, and disorder. All he wanted was to get her to stop moving, pin her down, and stab her until she screamed, if she was a screamer. He grabbed her chest with both hands, and it shocked him that this was how tits actually felt. They weren't hard at all. He didn't intend to waste minutes untying the strings down the corset bodice, and he pulled out a penknife. She caught him. He probably wasn't going to use it on her, but she objected nonetheless.

"Mmph, no," she scolded him, taking it away. "In fact, before we go on, I'm going to have to ask you to empty your pockets."

"Oh, please," he said incredulously, but she'd drawn back and turned her head to the side. She steadfastly refused to touch him until he gave in. Refusing meant he'd have to jerk off, and this close to honest-to-God pussy, that didn't hold enough appeal. Confiscating his toys in exchange for playing with her? "Fine! You obnoxious hussy."

"I always get what I want," she said, grinning broadly. He discarded his sharp edges; eyes and nose creased with playful suspicion, she moved his hands aside and searched deep in his pockets for hidden knives. Her questing fingers stroked him without meaning to, and his edge sharpened considerably. She found a blade and unfolded it before his eyes with a sardonic attitude.

"Funny. So do I!" he declared, seizing her wrist and forcing the blade down, cutting the pale ribbons all down her corset. She gasped in mock outrage as the piece came apart down the middle, freeing her body. She fought to regain control of the arm he'd taken, only doing so by kneeing him in the ribs. Winded and impressed, he let her chuck the knife aside. It clattered on the floor somewhere. "I'll be wanting that back, Wallace," he informed her. She shrugged and deftly moved his hands to her small breasts, encouraged him to squeeze and pinch.

Once he was distracted, she started to grind her hips down on him, rise up, bend, apply pressure where it counted, her bent knees firmly at his sides. He wanted nothing more than to hump her through his pants and get it over with, but he was never one to pass up an opportunity for free merchandise. He got free shit; it came with the territory of being a Largo and running the free world. He stopped her, snarling that he wanted to fuck, not screw around.

She hadn't lost her cool. There came a point when women got really crazy and passionate about fucking, the desperate point when their legs flopped open and they gasped for someone to fill their holes. The Wallace girl either had control, or she didn't care. Either way, he was going to get what she'd promised. He undid his belt and pulled it from the loops one by one, and by the time he'd done that, her panties were halfway down her legs. She halted and looked at him. "Luigi, can I see your wallet? It's not for your money."

"Damn it, you are a cocktease," he griped, reaching into his pocket. He held the wallet open for her.

She reached for a square package that crinkled to the touch. "Thanks." Unwrapping the condom, she added, "Unless you don't _want_ to fuck me. I mean, I could help you rub one out, but this is the only way I'll ride you."

"Shut up, and take off your fucking panties." Sarcastically, he said, "Unless you _want_ me to fuck a hole through them." He pushed down his trousers and boxers. They were going to do this with their shoes on, because he couldn't be bothered to take off more clothes than he had to. The condom went on, with the girl supervising. She acted like he'd make it disappear if she didn't watch him. Her panties were wadded up in her hand, and she knelt over him, her tits in sucking distance. Speaking of disappearing acts... he couldn't wait to disappear inside her.

"Okay," she said. "Should I just-?"

It was an unexpected moment, her voice uncertain. She was a whore. Shouldn't she know what she was doing? Was this fumble part of her act? Unwilling to think on her motivations - the danger being that he could get distracted from what was at hand - he gripped her hips, his fingers digging into the flesh, and brought her down as he thrust up. There would be red marks on her skin, part bruise, part blood from under and around his nails. He wouldn't have been surprised if she'd been... not wet, seeing as she was a whore who was screwing him because she felt obligated. But she _was_ , and his arms almost gave out. She was wet, and her face was composed but that was a basic something that she couldn't hide. He pumped her up and down his length in a rough and steady cadence, and she lolled her head back, eyes shut. Each bounce drew out a soft gasp. It went on and on, and her body sparkled with beads of sweat.

She crooked her neck to look at him, and she tried to look bored but her eyes were excited. He held her up, delaying a stroke, and she jarred him by shuddering her body down around his cock, and that was it for him. A tremor broke through him, and he spilled with her muscles clenched. She moved away from him and kissed his chest, discretely attending to the unglamorous process of cleaning them both up.

He fell asleep trying to catch his breath, her hands still moving over him. She nudged him out of sleep, kicking at his shin lightly with the pointed tip of her boot. He reluctantly opened his eyes to see her standing at the foot of the bed, dressed, made up, and holding out a steaming thermos.

"Hey. I made coffee. You need to clear out."

He sipped at the coffee as he walked back to the familiar parts of town. It was scalding hot and black, the way he liked it.

 


	2. Chapter 2

By Luigi's twenty-third birthday, the Largos and those associated with them stopped mentally assigning the gophers names. The scared and hopeful menfolk didn't last overlong, and it had nothing to do with job stress and everything to do with Luigi's rages. He didn't care to keep anyone around too long. No, he seized on any opportunity to be disappointed enough to fly off the handle. Instead, the gophers had numbers. It was easier that way for casual conversation as well as orders. Two and six bit it good today; three is showing improvement and could live another week. And so on.

The gophers barely acknowledged each other. They knew what they were and why they were there, and it wasn't to make friends. It was every man for himself. One person's failure was another's opportunity for continued survival and the money that came with it. The gold was the only reason any of them stuck around. People didn't commit suicide without damn good compensation. Some, but not all, were working off surgical debts, student loans, mortgages. Most were there for family.

Luigi's life followed a strict schedule. He valued ordered living and flawless execution of his every whim. Therefore, the fact that he had, for the first time in years, failed to return home one evening was troubling. The gophers banded together to discuss the possibilities. They had just pounced hopefully on the idea of gender reassignment - estrogen in mass quantities would be their saving grace - when the man himself arrived home, completely unchanged save for faded blotches on his white shirt.

"Coffee?" Gopher Two shouted before anyone else could get the idea.

Luigi Largo held up the thermos in his hand. "Nah, someone else did it first. Why don't you all SCRAM?"

They fled, bitterly accusing each other of sneaking off to fetch Mr. Largo his caffeine to curry favor before the others had a chance. If they didn't know any better, the gophers would have said he had been in a good mood. If he had been, the events of the next few minutes shattered it and any hopes of resulting peace. He walked by a mirror and recalled that the red on his shirt was his brat sister's fault. The damage had been marginally reduced, thanks to Wallace's intervention, but it was not fixed.

This was a nice fuckin' shirt. He had paid for it with his own money, ironed and pressed it with extreme care. It had been virgin white. Bitch was going to hear from him. He stormed up the flights of stairs to her suite - suite for Sweet, which she'd found hilarious and he found moronic - and pounded on the door.

"Open up!" he yelled. "Don't make me kick down the door."

He heard sheets rustling, a theatrical, feminine yawn. "Don't get your panties in a twist," Amber hollered, and the door opened marginally.

"You're indecent," Luigi snapped, hastily averting his eyes as she tied her robe. The body hadn't been hers for years, but he still didn't want to see it. Those tits belonged to his sister. The least she could do was cover them up in his presence.

"Yeah, I know. You adore it. What is it, brother? Why did you wake me up?" She lazily ruffled her hair, the springy twists of gold. Examining her crystal watch informed her that it was very early in the morning, and that didn't sit well with her. Luigi didn't blame her. She needed every second of her beauty rest, with a mug like that.

He shouldered his way into her room. "You RUINED my SHIRT." He gesticulated wildly, pointing out the stains so violently that his shoulders spasmed.

"Oh, that shirt. They all look so alike. Why don't you throw it away and start fresh? I do that every day with my parts." She gleamed her teeth at him. When that failed to get a reaction, she went to her bed, smoothing out the sheets, replacing thrown pillows, tucking in the edges of blankets.

"You RUINED my SHIRT," he repeated, gritting his teeth.

She smirked and tiptoed to him in bare feet, tracing his cheekbones. He grabbed her wrist and threw her arm down. "My ears do work. Do you remember why I did that?"

"Uh, I'm gonna say it's because you're a bitch!"

"I am, but that's not why. No, no, no. It's because I was announcing my engagement to you and Pavi and our closest friends, and you interrupted." Hands on her hips, she shouted, "IT WASN'T NICE!"

"Who gives a shit? Like he's really going to marry you! Ha!"

Her perfectly symmetrical features puckered, and he couldn't tell if she was sad or furious or both. It didn't matter. Either way, he'd bothered her, and that was good enough for him. "You mess up my clothes again, and I'll mess you up," he warned her, shaking his fist in her face. "That's a promise, sister. Like... a _proposal._ "

"Get! Out!" she shrieked, shoving him, hands on his shoulders, throwing the whole weight of her body forward as she marched him out her door. Slam, and behind the now-locked door Luigi could hear the familiar noises of a tantrum. Glass bottles shattered, paper ripped, and Amber screamed, beating the ground with her arms and legs.

She'd calm down on her own. When she was a little kid, he'd been the one to snap her out of it, grabbing her panicking, angry body, wrapping his lanky arms all the way around her wiry body and squeezing the violence out of her. It didn't stop the tantrum right away, and she'd go right on beating the air between them, making contact with his skin, punching, scratching, kicking. He'd accepted her blows and shakes, taking them into his body, making him tense as his arms tightened. At the time, he'd done it because he took pity on her, because he was the eldest and she didn't know how to handle her hysteria. Now she was old enough to face her moods alone.

If people only knew what she was like sober, they'd want her back on drugs in a heartbeat. She'd made a second Zydrate Support Network, which actually was for those hoping to quit. Snipers hidden at each entrance were trained to shoot graverobbers or those with Z in their possession. She'd quit, and met her current lover in the rehab paradise she'd crafted. A year and a half later, she was still sober, and, now, in love. This was the longest she'd been in any monogamous relationship. It made her insufferable.

Luigi hadn't had time for relationships, romantic or otherwise. He hadn't even scheduled any new surgeries, not for months. Besides, he was barely over his greatest heartbreak: his pop. But as his brain hesitated into those regions, threatening to unlock those memories, he shut himself down. The past was the past, and Rotti was a lump of dust in an urn. Luigi and Amber had picked it out together, one of the last decisions they agreed on.

He handed his shirt to a GENtern. She ran her tongue over her lips and said she'd take it to the incinerator. He requested two new shirts to replace it, with a higher thread count this time. He wasn't a pauper. He could enjoy nice, expensive things.

* * *

All Luigi needed to get away was an excuse. Anything could be used to make his temper flare. He could feel his fury bubbling, all set to be untapped and unleashed with its full potency. He'd have to use the tools at his disposal. At least his siblings were dining elsewhere. He poked at his steak with his fork. It was tough.

They DARED serve him a tough steak? Didn't they know who he was? He was Luigi Largo, the cream of the crop, the best. He deserved the best. He upended his plate, sending potatoes flying.

"Will the SHIT responsible for this garbage come forward..." His father would've added _at once_ for that extra kick in the pants that miscreants needed. Luigi was not a gentleman like his father. "NOW?"

The bald, droopy-eyed cook was kicked out of the kitchen with a disgruntled backwards look at the offender. He looked half-asleep and freaked out, seemingly determined to keep as much distance between the two of them as possible. "Yes, sir?"

Luigi clicked his fingers, beckoning the man forward. "Don't you talk. Watch." He picked up the plate, speared the meat on his knife, and tried to cut it, exaggerrating its toughness. "This meat is dry. You overcooked my dinner."

"Oh, God." His eyes were wide in horror. "I'll cook a new one. I'm so sorry, Mister Largo! It won't happen again!"

"Too late!"

The steak was flipped off the knife onto the table. Luigi wiped the juice on the chef's apron, irritated with the violent way he had commenced shaking. He shoved the guy on the table harshly, shoving the knife up under his chin. He bawled like a baby ripped away from a dripping tit, fat tears leaking out of his tear ducts. Sweat gleamed from the creases in his pink forehead, and he wouldn't stop _fucking shaking_. His mouth was drawn open, chin wobbling. It was ridiculous. Luigi wanted to laugh. Or kill the guy, grab a drink, and have a laugh about the guy over the drink.

He could go either way, at this point, but murder was messy.

"You're lucky this is a new shirt," he jeered, stabbing the knife into the wood surface just to the right of the ex-cook's ear.

He cried out in anticipation of pain and, finding none, collapsed, still weeping, an overcooked steak for a pillow.

After that incident, five minutes of top volume shouting was all it had taken for the eldest Largo to shirk out of the remainder of his duties for the day, not that Amber wanted him around after he'd yelled at her. He'd been wanting to leave for a while now, without fully understanding why until getting into the car and inputting the address. It drove automatically, and he guided the wheel at odd intervals when the view outside provided no entertainment. He parked in the street and stepped outside, locked the car. In the harsh daytime, this building looked even more of a wreck than he'd remembered. It was dark and ugly, covered in years of accumulated bird crap and graffiti. A string of lights was over one window, a flickering beacon calling up scavengers and men looking for the salvation of a woman's touch.

He shuddered at the filthy conditions in the halls, laid bare with every flaw exposed. He hadn't seen it before. He'd been blissfully ignorant, thinking that he'd been somewhere at least moderately clean. The way things looked here, he expected his shoes to crunch down on cockroaches and rat skeletons. The yellowing walls were stained, and he determinedly stared straight ahead. His skin itched, and he wanted nothing more than to scrub the surrounding surfaces and then his contaminated skin. This was disgusting. Vile. A pigpen. But he was here for a reason, damn it, and he wasn't going to turn back now.

He knocked on her door.

No response.

He knocked harder.

Then, a sharp moan. "Oh, God, YES!"

He frowned. "Whaaat?"

"YES! YES! Oh, I'm- I'm-"

And then a shrill, rapturous scream that died down to a panting gasp. She was orgasming. She was fucking someone; someone was on top of her, watching her O face as he rutted in her.

Only, that didn't sound like her.

A moment later, Wallace opened the door. She didn't look surprised to see him, or happy. She looked amused. "What's going on in there?" he asked suspiciously.

A miniature television had been set up to project porn on the wall. She smacked the remote, turning it off, and tossed it on the bed. She didn't seem embarrassed at all and, even though she didn't appear to have company, she was dressed provocatively in a silky red teddy. She said, "Hello again, Luigi. You tracked me down?"

She hadn't even answered his question! He stared at her. "I have a good memory," he said. Near photographic, really. "Why were you watching _that_?"

" _That_?" she laughed. "That has a name. Pornography, erotic film, adult TV. You can't be so repressed. I wouldn't expect it of you. I mean, don't you ever jerk off?" And she expected an answer, that much was obvious.

He was not discussing his masturbation habits with her. What the hell was wrong with her, that she'd ask him that? "Do you?" he asked.

She grinned. "Yeah, all the time! But I wasn't just then. One of my friends is in it. It's an amateur production, and she wanted my opinion. I think she was pretty convincing and, if your blush is any indication, you did, too." She let her arm drop from the wall, stepped back, and let him in.

"Your place is a mess," he sneered, referring to the apartment in general and to her space, strewn with clothes and dirty dishes.

"Years of living in a completely clean... sanitized... room made me rebellious. It is normally cleaner than this. It's laundry day." She picked up clothes from off of the floor, from lampshades, from her bed, and tossed the pile in a hamper. "Is there a reason you're here, or is it just to insult my home?"

"No, there's another reason, sure," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets and feeling supremely awkward but confident as to what her answer would be. "Uh. Wallace, I didn't have a terrible time the other night. It wasn't bad. What I'm sayin' is I wouldn't mind repeating the experience."

She looked him over and shrugged. "Okay. Put the credits on my dresser and we'll get started. It's fifty an hour."

"What? Wallace, it was free before!"

"Yeah, because you helped me out. And I appreciate that, I really do, but this is not a charity!"

"I am _not_ paying for something I got for free," he snapped, looking around for something to break.

"Don't you even think about it," she said, watching where his eyes went, as they landed on a glass lamp. "If you break something, I will be billing your family. Believe that. Sorry to have made you drive all the way out here. Come back with credits and I'll be more than happy to assist you."

"Yeah, yeah." He waved her off and stormed out, then popped his head back in the doorway. "Why was it free last time, again?"

"I told you," she said. "Someone was trying to take advantage, and with my help, you stopped him. More permanently than I thought, but he deserved it." She chuckled grimly. "How did your shirt turn out?"

"I... threw it away." He left.

And, as his father would have done, he schemed. There was always a way to manipulate a situation to put yourself on top, so you had all the power and control. So the bitch had rules. Expectations. Everyone did, it was just a matter of getting around them, making them think you were helping them when really you were helping yourself.

If Wallace needed to be in danger for him to screw her, he'd put her in danger. Swoop in and rescue her, make a big deal of it, and shove her into bed. Punish her for telling him he had to pay for what he wanted. He wanted a body, and hers had been nice. The danger wouldn't be too real; he didn't want her damaged or so scared she wouldn't perform, and it'd be quick to arrange.

He probably wouldn't have to spend any money, even.

He'd just have to find a desperate enough bum. In this city, there were a million to choose from. He bought a scarf and wrapped it around his nose and mouth, hiding his identity. He looked like a diseased freak. He guffawed at his bewildered reflection.

"You look like a jackass," he told himself.

Pavi did sick things to get laid. He drugged women, lied to them, hit them over the head. Honest to God, Luigi had seen him dragging unconscious women down the hall to his room. The sick fuck. Luigi, more often than not, just did stupid things. And Amber... Amber just slutted it up until she caught something between her legs. He rolled his eyes, snapped himself back to the present and went to his car. It hadn't been keyed or smashed or in any way disturbed, but he glared around, suspicious that someone had touched it. He'd have someone wash it when he brought it back to the garage, to get any filth it had acquired off of it.

Before going home, however, he'd stop in another scummy neighborhood and find a lowlife, a man with no imagination of his own. With any luck, he'd be a Z addict. They were the easiest to fool. He'd just slip the person her address, say she had a cache of the good stuff, and offer an extra reward if they waited until a time of his choosing to go calling on the little whore.

They'd go for the reward, of course, thinking it more Z, or a fistful of credits with which they could get the drug. He'd save the day, and wouldn't she be fuckin' grateful then, that he was there at just the right moment.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Darkness flashed over the world and the people flooded from their little corners into nightclubs, into their second dens. They traded tacky three and four piece suits for bondage gear, sensible shoes for boots glittering along their legs. Nubile creatures danced to an internal rhythm, free from the constraints of choreography, limbs draped between the cold bars. Their arms reached and reached. Tables all were staffed and attended by only alcohol, lawless drunkenness ruling the night with stroking fingers.

In a remote, tasteless place advertising live entertainment, the sign a dazzling, flickering neon green, a birthday was being celebrated in a back room among comrades. True, no one ever jumped out of a cake, but the birthday girl wore cupcake pasties under her dress. She was exquisitely lovely. Her skin held the last vestigial glow and fat and flush of youth, and the famously dark eyes were dancing with unfiltered joy. Her many presents had been devoured, torn into by greedy, gloved hands. Wrapping paper now dressed up the floor, quieting their shoes.

A flamboyant, pink-haired teenager with rainbow beads around her wrists and neck swooped in and kissed her friend affectionately, chastely on the lips. She declared, "Happy birthday, my lovely! Oh, what a crazy year it's been. And here we are! Aren't you nineteen, now?"

"Twenty," Shilo corrected proudly. The group whistled when she returned the kiss hard enough for the teen to hurriedly hide her blush behind a green, paper fan. "I'm so happy to see you all! You have no idea. It means so, so much."

They were all there. Friends, former coworkers, flings with whom she'd ended things on pleasant terms, gathered there, somewhat drunk and all fulfilled by the company. What an odd and mismatched group, but there they were, a merry union for the night. Two women, previously unknown to each other, had made a fast acquaintance and were sitting in each other's laps, sweetly alternating between feeding each other cake and kissing. Shilo smiled. She suspected those two would hit it off, and she was pleased to be the event that brought them together.

"We wouldn't miss it for the world!" came a shout, accompanied by scattered hollers and claps.

"When are we getting to the party games?" the birthday girl asked. "We should start soon... lest we grow tired. Like corpses!"

They groaned and gagged and she went on, "It's late!"

"Please stop," a guy named Peaches begged.

She mimed zipping her scarlet lips and sat there grinning fiendishly. From one guest's bag came a closed, round container. It emitted blue light and drew amazed stares and exclamations the whole room 'round. It came unscrewed and they showed her it was a cream, the substance intensely bright as if under a black-light.

"Is it Zydrate?" she asked warily. "Come on, guys. You know the rules. No corpse snot, I don't care how popular it is."

"No, that ain't it at all!" Under her disbelieving glare came a hasty and relenting amendment: "Well, yeah, but it's not death-begotten. It's pure. Honest, Shilo!"

She shrugged. "Whatever. You guys can use it, just don't try to push it on me." With a wink, she added, "You could paint it on me, if that's what you had in mind."

Their enthused reaction satisfied her; she messily, carelessly cleared everything, empty glasses and dirty plates and open pizza boxes, off of the long, narrow bar table and climbed on up, shucking off her white shoes, then passing her dress over her head, liberating her body. She laid down on the cool surface, her arms over her head to tickle and grab her friends. The room rang with fits of laughter.

"Birthday girl wants a lollipop!" she said bossily. She soon had one, unwrapped it noisily, popped it in her mouth.

The jar went from person to person, and they scooped the smooth contents out with their fingers. For a few of the more inexperienced, it was their first time seeing Zydrate in anything other than a vial, and they gazed in wonder. Zydrate, almost alive in the low light, almost breathing, the color that vibrant. She squealed at the cold as they painted her dewy skin, drew blue designs onto her body. She became an exotic, sparkling Zydrate beast. Those who hadn't planned on sobriety licked the remaining stuff off of their fingers and found themselves drawn hungrily, irresistibly to then lap it off of her, finding it had been made a sickly sour and sweet raspberry flavor, and potent as fire. Mixed with the salty heat of her body, the concoction burned and stunned the lot of them.

They gave in to the glow.

She waited around, only a little bored, for them to come back to their senses. She hugged and thanked her friends, helped tidy up the place, and waited around with her youngest guest, the rainbow-decorated girl, for her cousin to show up and take her home. The relative thanked Shilo for keeping the girl out of trouble; Shilo smiled and said it wasn't any trouble at all. The girl changed her name on a near monthly basis, calling herself Noelle for the time being. In a fit of sympathy, Shilo had helped her off the streets and the girl had been infatuated with her ever since. It was cute, but Shilo couldn't see herself going there, not seriously.

Her encounters with other women had been less than satisfying, probably because her inner cynic thought these things a game, part of a scheme to manipulate the given partner and any stereotypical audience. Men were suckers for girl on girl, and women, like men, wanted to feel wanted. They had to know it was pretend.

Shilo doubted she was capable of sincere affection.

She derived pleasure from these actions, obviously. Kissing and touching revved her engine as effectively as a vibrator. She wouldn't do all the things she did otherwise. That didn't mean she wasn't faking it, faking the emotion and connectivity behind it. Yes, she felt the intoxicating, giddy rushes and rises and falls and peaks and plateaus of sex, but there was nothing human in it. Romances were short-lived, and after being disappointed a few times after the opera by certain men, she thought there was a reason that infatuation never was a factor in her affairs.

She just didn't see people in that way. They were customers, enemies, or friends, and she adored her friends, really as much as she could. But she was becoming infamous for breaking hearts within that circle, and that wasn't her fault. Anyone could see the signs and decide not to get involved. If their feelings were hurt, it was their own damn fault.

Humming "happy birthday to me," Shilo let herself into her apartment. She was full, still a bit tipsy, and content. Thoughts were running wild in her head, figments of the recent past and the hopeful future; she drowned them out, or attempted to, with the radio. After a party, she always felt gross, and here she was, licked, painted, sweaty, and choked with a dozen brands of perfume. She wanted to get clean before dropping off to sleep.

She set the stopper in her bathtub and filled it up with scalding water. Petals of pink flowers, leftover from her now wilting birthday bouquet, interrupted her reflection. She was about to step into the steaming water when she heard a sound that about stopped her heart cold. Creak on the floorboards.

There was someone inside.

A whisper of anxiety was quickly smothered in her gut. The key was not to give herself even an inch of terror with which to panic. She dressed. The bathroom door was closed and unlocked, so she kept still, listening intently. One set of ungraceful shoes tracked about.

"Where's the Z?" the voice belonging to the intruder grumbled.

She'd been mugged before. It hadn't been as terrifying as expected; a guy stopped her on the street, waved a gun around, and she gave him her phone, which was all she had on her. No one had broken into her place before, and it was weird that he was looking for Zydrate. Just because most of the population was on it didn't mean everyone had some in their homes. Specific, specific enough to cause suspicions. She cast about the room for a way to incapacitate him.

It was impossible to stop her breath from seizing when she heard him say "More importantly, where's the girl?" Oh, God, did he know her? She didn't recognize the voice, and anyone who'd spoken with her for more than a moment knew her disdain for Z. Ragged coughs, muttering. "She's home, where else would she be?"

In her search, a bottle of perfume smashed to the floor. The noise was earth-shatteringly painful, as were the minute glass pieces she'd have to contend with. And his attention was diverted, all to her.

He hastened to the door, shuffling steps. She pressed her body flat against the door. "Hey, girly... You best come on out and show me where the goods are. Come on out, now, and I'll be nice to you. Make me wait, and I won't be so kind." There was the unmistakable sound of a penknife flashing open, sharp and fast.

She backed away from the door immediately and, lacking anything else, took a long ribbon and wound it tightly between her fists. She hopped onto the counter, crouched. The door swung open; she pounced, knocking him backwards into the hall. She stepped off of his chest and quickly moved behind the winded man, strangling him with the ribbon. He flailed his arms and rose, bringing her to her feet, but she wouldn't relent with the ribbon, increasing pressure, increasing his terror. The knife swung ineffectively. He put his free hand to his neck, trying to dislodge what was cutting off his air.

"Gah-" He gurgled and choked, and succumbed. He broke to his knees.

For good measure, she bashed him in the head twice with a platform shoe. He moaned and fainted. Now that he was unconscious on the ground, it was obvious that he was nobody, a random junkie who fancied himself a criminal. He was an older cad, with grey in his long hair. Fortunately he had been neither tall, nor strong, nor intelligent. He was just desperate, and she was faster. She disarmed him and rifled through a trunk for handcuffs. She secured his right wrist to her bedpost and made herself a cup of tea as she waited for him to regain his senses.

Funny how her whole evening had been about knocking people out and then waiting around for them to come out of it. She chuckled.

He groaned back to life. "What...'s going on," he slurred.

She perched a safe distance from him and sipped the tea. "Took you long enough. I was afraid I'd killed you." His voice made a strangled cry of alarm. "You know, because then I'd have to chop you up into little pieces and hide you somewhere. That would be inconvenient." She smiled coldly.

"I'm sorry!" His eyes were wild. He probably thought she was going to kill him or something equally uncreative.

"You aren't sorry," she scoffed. "You're sorry that I took you down. Say it. You won't hurt my feelings, dear."

He hung his head. "For a bitty creature, you're fast."

"I know." She set her cup down. "You want some Z? Is that it?"

"You... you gonna give me some Z?" he asked hopefully.

"No, you idiot. I don't keep any in this house. I'll spare you the tragic exposition, but suffice it to say that it's a nasty drug. And most of it comes from the dead." She came close, closer, knelt before him, and wiped a speck of blood from the corner of his mouth. "Have you ever seen an extraction?"

She reached into her pocket and he wailed, "Oh no, no, d-don't! Don't!"

"I'm not going to hurt you. Shhh." She patted his cheek, little smacks that weren't supposed to bring any semblance of comfort. "It was a mistake to screw with me."

"Who are you?" he asked frantically.

"I'm Shilo Wallace. You may have heard of me. My dad was Nathan Wallace." As his chin shook, she nodded, smiled. "That's right." She leaned close and whispered, "Reeeepo maaaaan..."

He shuddered and tried to jerk away, rattling the cuffs. She felt guilty, a little, and backed off, giving him back his space. He stared at a fixed point on the ground, either suddenly ashamed of himself or too terrified of her to make a wrong move.

"Tell me, you lowly fungus, who sent you to my door?"

He raised his eyes to meet hers, opened his mouth to speak. His voice rattled, but the answer came readily. "I kn-kn-knew it was him. M-Mister Largo, he was disguised but his voice is- everyone knows it. He can't hide that." He was putty in her hands, and she held the control. Not just over this one burglar, it seemed, but... Luigi Largo. And that was... well, it was an interesting birthday gift. She smiled in spite of herself.

The wretch didn't notice. Good. Best not let him think he'd given her pleasant news. And, hell, she was angry. She wanted a gesture, but this was a step over the line. This was her home. Her privacy. Her _home_ , one she'd worked hard to construct and make safe without ever feeling confining.

Oh, Luigi. She would have to impress on him how mean a trick he'd played on her.

"You have a phone?"

"Left pocket..."

She fetched it and flipped it open. She scrolled through the contacts. "Did he give you a number?"

"It's the fifth one. I was supposed to call him before. I didn't want to share if I found anything." He mumbled, "Or _anyone_. I knew any girl who had his attention would be special." She smirked. "I just didn't know she'd be hot and _dangerous_."

"Oh, I'm full of surprises." She dialed.

Luigi answered after two rings. "What? Are you heading out there?"

"Noo," she said sweetly. "I'm already here."

"... Wallace?" She could almost hear the cogs turning in his head. She let his thoughts brew in silence. "You still there? Hello?"

"Some trash showed up here." She kicked the burglar so he grunted audibly. "It belongs to you. Come. Get. Him. NOW."

"Wallace, I'm sorr-"

She hung up and put the phone back in the guy's pocket. "Men," she sighed. "Don't try to run away and I won't hurt you. Got it?"

His head bobbled in a series of frightened nods.

"Good."

It took Luigi the better part of an hour to get to her place. He seemed very unhappy. It was difficult to keep her stomach from doing a cartwheel of excitement when he crossed the threshold into her domain. She had to stay angry.

"This is not the way to get a woman's attention, _Mister Largo_ ," she said scathingly.

"Don't you talk to me like-" he started to yell, but thought better of it. "My God, Wallace, what'd you do?" He looked at the guy in awe. "Hey, I'm sorry, but he was SUPPOSED TO CALL ME."

"You sound like a woman," she laughed. At him. She was laughing at Luigi Largo, and he was letting her do so. Amazing! She unlocked the cuffs and said dangerously to the criminal, "If you come sniffing around here again, I will extract you and let the bad people who live in these parts fuck your corpse. Get out."

He ran. Luigi was too startled by her viciousness to stab or yell, and the creep was free to skulk the city.

"That," he said. "was not what I expected. Not from you."

"Should I have expected that from you? Are you stalking me? I mean, what was that all about?" she asked.

He rubbed the back of his neck, momentarily at a loss for words. The moment was awkward for them both. "I... you'd think it was sweet if I rescued you."

"Oh, I get it. You're my knight in shining armor in this scenario?" she said. "Luigi, that's beneath you."

"I know it fucking is!" he yelled.

"It was a gesture, nonetheless. I think we need to talk about this. Not now. I'm too _angry_ to talk to you now," she said. "and drunk. Still drunk. Pick me up tomorrow and we'll try to iron out this... whatever this is."

"What? You want me to take you out?" he said, perplexed.

"Yes. I could blow you now and then never, ever talk to you again. I'm guessing you wouldn't want that, not in the long run."

He admitted with some bluster that it wasn't.

"Okay. Then I'll see you later." She showed him the door without a goodbye.

 


	4. Chapter 4

He rang her bell at a quarter to one. Luigi was nervous as hell, but at least he looked good. Three different consultants had made sure of that. Their lives had depended on it. Button-down white shirt, blue cravat, pinstripe jacket, crisp trousers. All ironed, all tailored perfectly, not a stitch out of place. He'd had a shave and his hands were gloved, to minimize the risk of a germ issue. There were many factors that would always be beyond his control in this pseudo-dating situation, as his therapist delicately reminded him. He owned the world, but he did not own this girl.

He didn't know if she could be bought. Most people could be, one way or another. But Wallace seemed different. He had money, and if she made it worth his while, he would make it worth her time. The idea of owning that little slice was hot, no denying it. At his beck and fuckin' call. No need for fantasies or elaborate props and costumes; all he needed was to feel that he owned her.

But then again, that had been a problem. Once a woman was under his employ, he lost interest completely. They became accessories, toys which he quickly grew bored with and tossed aside.

She undid the lock, not the latch, and showed her eyeball and a sliver of nose and cheek through a mostly closed door. She scanned him down-up. "Hey," the woman said, and without her appearance to focus on, he noticed that her voice wasn't deep, but breathy and happy. It wasn't a voice that tried to be sexual.

"You going to open up, or do I have to wait out here all day?" he asked more irritably than he felt, tapping his shoe on the linoleum to let her hear that he was a busy man.

She undid the latch and opened the door all the way. She was wearing hardly any of a violently white dress and matching top hat and flats. Her legs seemed to end prematurely but, no, he remembered now that she was a runt of a woman. The same could be said for her whole figure. He was viewing an uncut, unaltered version of a girl, and however old she was, she was not filled out in as many places as most women were. A sweet, floral perfume hit him in the eyes, only it wasn't refined enough to be proper perfume.

It just smelled like she was clean.

"Not too shabby, Wallace," he said after giving her a once-over of his own. He was able to meet her eyes in spite of the array of feathers at her decolletage, pushing out for attention. There were hints of pride and hesitance in her eyes.

"Good enough to be seen on your arm?" she wondered with a hint of warm, friendly irony. She shut and locked the door. The tarnished key disappeared into an over-sized, feathered purse.

"It'll do."

When they walked, she didn't grab at his hand or cling to his arm. When they reached his car, she didn't yell for him to open her door. When he was driving, she didn't turn on the radio, or chatter idly, or primp and preen in a mirror. She didn't try to exert a presence, and maybe that's why he felt it more than with other people. Admittedly, he glanced over once... or twice... and found that her rouged cheek was pressed to the sun warmed glass, and her eyes would be glazed over until she felt him watching. Then, her attention would flicker to him, and he'd look back at the road without a word.

She was pretty enough to look at. He could say that to himself, albeit begrudgingly. She didn't buy into his family brand. That should have made her plain, except it obviously didn't. The person in the passenger's seat was a bauble, a doll, even without upgrading her trashy heredity. This did not answer the question that pricked and needled at his brain: What were they doing together?

He parked his car, screaming at the valet attendants that he could do it himself. Pay someone else to potentially scratch or wreck his property? Who did they think they were? She casually asked if her purse could be left in the glove compartment. Most people would have been cowed by his rage, even if it hadn't been directed at their particular brand of incompetence. Not her. She was quiet as a mouse, but strong. They rode up in an elevator and an attendant in blue and grey opened the doors, ushered them in.

It wasn't formal by his standards; she, on the other hand, gasped and looked all around, impressed and baffled by everything. Funny, he thought she'd stopped being a recluse. Then he remembered that she probably couldn't afford to come here.

That was the thing about peasants. They were poor, and that was one of the qualities that separated them from him.

The maitre d greeted them both by name. He'd been instructed beforehand and practiced his movements a dozen times, and still the sweat squeezed out of his palms like diamonds. The wait staff had been similarly prepared. Luigi wanted people to be impressed with him, so call him by last name and cower. Largos don't want physical contact, so only take his coat if it's offered. The date is Shilo Wallace, and she is to be treated like a lady and her glass must never, ever be dry. It was busy, yet a snap of his fingers caused the two of them to be taken to a private table hidden from the rabble by a dividing wall and plants.

A waiter pushed in Shilo's seat and she smiled, a smile which fell when she saw the numerous silverware aligning the plates.

"What have we here... Uh-oh," she said, examining the forks one by one for differences. "How do I know what to use?"

He rolled his eyes, put his hand over hers to stop the repetition. "I own this place, and every place. It doesn't even matter, get it? Do whatever the fuck you want."

"Oh, I will," she said earnestly.

He realized his hand still covered hers. He stopped when a waiter came by with their drinks, and his face felt bright and hot with something unfamiliar and uncomfortable.

In an attempt to pass off the moment as unimportant, he snidely said, "Eat with your hands, for all I care."

"What you're saying is that there aren't any rules?" she chuckled.

"Not for us."

She smirked at him and popped her hat from her head and onto his. "Can I do that?"

He scowled and chucked the hat away. It spun and landed on a tree with shiny, plastic fruit dangling from its branches. "Not on your life," he said.

"Wow." She propped her elbows on the table and leaned forward, toward him. "That was an impressive arm, Luigi." She took the cherry from her drink and lowered the red, red fruit into her parted mouth. He watched, fascinated that a woman could hypnotize him even while he was aware that she was doing it. That was skill. "But then, that's not the only thing impressive about you, is it?"

He stared at her in silence as she perused the menu. "They don't have a dessert menu?" she whined. "That's the best part of going out. Restaurant desserts are overpriced, but they're at least fifteen times better than anything I could scrounge together at home."

"You want dessert? You'll get some," he said, waving a waiter over and telling him to forget about dinner, just find a decent dessert cart. Shilo clapped her hands excitedly and asked for something with strawberries.

Figures that the girl would want something expensive. Fresh fruit would cost extra. Nothing he couldn't handle, of course. He could eat imported food every day of the week if he wanted to. Luckily for his pocketbook, he liked his meals greasy and cheap. The waiter hesitated at the lady's request, but Luigi nodded an acquiescence. The man hurried away.

"I haven't had strawberries since I was a little girl," she remarked. "Thank you. I bet they'll be as sweet now as I remember."

"Whatever." He waved it off. "I'm not here to listen to you talk about when you were a snot-nosed brat."

"No, you're here because I asked you and you said yes. Fancy that," she mused. "Is this a charity case, sir?"

He sneered. He was here because he had nothing better to do, because he had more money than he had common sense, and because she wasn't horrible company. There was no reason to assign ulterior motives to it beyond the usual ones: sex, namely. "Don't be stupid. You're the one who's got to explain herself."

"I guess that's fair." She brushed a stray piece of hair from in front of her eyes, tucking it behind her ear. It made her appear thoughtful, but likely as not she had her words memorized. He'd learned in school how to trick people into thinking you were bright and not dumb as dirt. She could've picked up the same talents on her own. "Then again, when have our lives ever been fair. I think we're the most unbalanced individuals there are."

He smirked at her. "Yeah, I'm easily three times your weight."

"That's one way of looking at it. I meant class. You're aristocracy," she said. "You're sort of royalty. And I'm a pauper in spite of my more than reasonable rates." Here she sighed, but it wasn't sad. She smiled. "Hm, I think I'll get the salmon."

* * *

The whole matter was dropped for that afternoon. Their conversation fell into an odd and easy syncopation. She'd talk, he'd say something mildly sarcastic and offensive, and her shoe would tap his under the table. Other times, she'd become absorbed in eating, pushing vegetables around on her plate, being more polite than she had to be to frightened waiters. He didn't get laid. She didn't even kiss him. Instead, once they got to her door, she took his phone and scheduled herself into his week: another date, same time, same place. Her reason was that the dessert cart looked so good, she wanted to try it twice. Not normally a patient man, he put up with it. It gave him time to call ahead and make sure they'd have strawberries. They were even able to sit at the very same table. She was right on time.

They spoke a little bit. How are you, did you kill anyone lately, that sort of thing. And then Shilo got to the meat of it.

"You know, we wouldn't even be sitting here if it weren't for our genetics."

"How do you mean?" he asked.

When she leaned forward like that, her mosquito bite boobs squeezed together in the loose-fitting shirt. They didn't flop around like big breasts, or point stubbornly in one direction like silicone-filled ones. It took a concerted effort for Luigi not to stare at her cleavage. She obviously wanted him to. It was a conspiracy.

"Our dads. You know. That old feud, bringing their kids together."

That killed his boner. "So what?"

"They crossed our lines permanently. We're connected, me and you and, God, even Amber and Pavi. But especially you and me, for one especial reason. Two events that helped your parent take out mine." Her face was a mask, betraying no emotions. He clenched his fists, expecting a trap.

He snapped, "If it's one thing I can't fucking stand, it's stupid guessing games, Wallace. Spit it out."

"What, you think Rotti would've had a snowball's chance in hell against the monster himself without a little help from his cohorts? You and me." The blue-lined eyes flashed. "Autopsy after his death showed that Repo Man had a concussion. And I know you stabbed him. Made him helpless." Slyly, she added, "At your poppa's behest?"

Slack-jawed, he nodded.

He had never made that connection. Never. Not in all the times he'd - proudly or sadly - rethought his actions that night. She was right. Without them, Nathan wouldn't have been an easy target. And before Pop had expired, he didn't take two seconds to thank either of them for making his partial victory possible. What a disappointment... and it had been disappointment in Rotti's voice before he crumpled.

Her voice brought him back.

"And a lot of good it did either of us. It scared me at the time. Only seventeen and bludgeoning a serial killer," she griped, biting a nail as she looked vacantly at a fish tank. Whatever fog she'd put herself in, she jerked herself out of it a second later. "But, uh... that's not why I wanted to see you outside my bedroom."

"Right. We both hurt your fath- Repo Man," he said, feeling it would be touching on a potentially exposed nerve if he brought the point too close to home. She looked flinchier than she had a minute ago. "I'm following you so far."

"Luigi, we did something huge because we worked together. I've put a lot of thought into this, and I think it's possible." Without a speck of a smile or any other indication that she could be joking, she steepled her fingers together, balanced her chin on her hands, and said, "I can help you take back GeneCo."

* * *

His thoughts as they crashed through the bathroom door were one clear statement, dumbfounded, mentally spoken over and over: _I have never fucked a broad in public._ And he couldn't understand why. He'd done more than his share of fucking. He'd always thought this was cheap. In his mind, public sex made him think of Amber soaring on Z in some dirty alley with a grungy graverobber, or Pavi humping girls on the sidelines of operas, or anywhere he could catch them.

No, Luigi had always been above that. Until now. He couldn't tell if he was shoving her or she was dragging him; all he knew was their bodies were travelling. They'd agreed on it and said forget the meal, because she was a devious tramp and he had never been more turned on. And then the bathroom door swung shut, and she jumped on him, locked her arms and legs around his body. He squeezed her close, moaning sharply because her kisses were turning violent, more bites than licks, and he staved off her teeth by engaging her tongue. He gripped her hair tightly at the nape of her neck and yanked.

They slammed against the wall. "Behave," he snarled into her mouth, yanking on her hair again. She'd put it in an untidy bun. Well, what had been untidy was now an unruly mess of hazel curls.

She whimpered. "Never," she said. She nudged his chin and bit his neck hard enough to leave a mark.

She put her feet on the floor, her hands glided teasingly down his chest, and he hungrily kissed her, sucking at her tongue. He shoved his knee between her legs, demanding a reaction. She pressed against him hard, panting, dragging her mouth away to bash her head to the wall in gasps. He smacked his hand over her open mouth. Gloved, as per usual. She halted her exaggerated gasping, perplexed.

"I don't need the gloves anymore," he said meaningfully.

Shilo nudged his palm until his fingertips rested on her bottom teeth, and she closed her teeth delicately over the fabric. He pulled his hand back, leaving the glove in her mouth. She turned her head and spat it onto the mercifully clean tiled floor. There was something vulgar and dainty and polished in her action that blew his mind. His hand went between her legs, up under the ridiculously minuscule skirt she was wearing. He moved her underwear aside and jammed two fingers into her, pumped them in and out, made her squirm and pant. She raised a leg around his back, giving him more room.

"Wait, wait," she gasped. "I want to, to..."

She fumbled with his fly with one hand, her other arm braced on the wall.

Finally, oh finally, fuck, she had her right hand wrapped around the base of his cock, and as she started to slide her hand up and down, they staggered their motions together, trying hard to get the other to moan without getting too wrapped up in their own mind-numbing pleasure. Or maybe the sounds she was making were of discomfort, but he loved how she felt clamped around his fingers, and, his face screwing up, he came into her hand. She grunted and reached for a towel to wipe her hand, then reached down for his wrist, where it was limp and awkward between her thighs. She guided his hand, ensuring that his movements were slower, more careful. "That's how you do it," she said encouragingly, her voice melting into a sigh, and then she squeezed, pulsated, her breaths skyrocketing, eyes closed.

She settled down from the natural high, straightening out her legs and slumping somewhat. It took her a few moments to let go of his wrist, and the whole time, he was conscious of her soft hand loosely circled there. There was a pleasant flush over her cheeks and chest. Some minutes later, they were still against the wall, panting for breath. Shilo kicked on the door experimentally and it flew open. It had been unlocked the entire time. In their excitement, they hadn't thought about checking.

Neither of them gave a fuck. She grinned at him cheekily. He just laughed. It wasn't derisive. She hadn't done anything pathetic. He still laughed.

"Come on, Wallace," he said. "Let me take you home."

She turned to a mirror and fixed her hair. "Okay. Oh, and Luigi, about next time..."

"Yeah?"

"I think it's about time I see what's become of dear Amber Sweet."

 


	5. Chapter 5

She didn't expect to return home that night, or the next. A carpetbag was open on her unmade bed, and Shilo was trying to pick what pieces of her life could be omitted for the time being. Her bugs, of course, would be safe enough here. They meant nothing to outsiders. Even close friends, whatever that term meant, didn't know about her enthusiasm for suffocating and pinning flies.

It had been decided that she'd show up unannounced to better scare the bejesus out of Amber. Ha. No, not really. The idea was not to appear in a blaze of sass and usurp all the attention. No, no. Shilo was to be no more than an accessory on Luigi's arm. A bit of subtle eye candy with a vaguely familiar name. She hoped Amber would be too drunk or high or self-important to remember clearly the details of the evening, but Luigi said Amber quit Z. That complicated things. At any rate, Shi would have to be on her best behavior. No smart-mouthing or manipulating, not yet. Best. Behavior.

Whatever that was. She was never badly behaved. Minus the recent foray into the exciting world of restaurant bathroom fucking, Shilo was the image of propriety. Basically. Sort of. She looked at herself in a handheld mirror, the same one she'd had since she was an adolescent. The woman gazing back was sex flushed and some of her make up had fallen. He'd kissed the red from her lips. Underneath, there was a girl, younger than she wanted to be, with ivory skin and dark eyes that still seemed too big for her face, looking at herself quizzically.

"Who do you think you are?" she seemed to be asking herself. "You can't take GeneCo. You gave it up. You doing this on a whim or something?"

It was then that someone laughed. It was Shilo in The Mirror, and Shilo was so startled that she dropped the mirror. It didn't break. And the laughter continued.

Shilo in The Mirror was in the air, or deep inside, or in the walls. She was all around, a constant feeling inside her head and mocking laughter ringing in her ears, deep vibrations shimmying into the ground. Shilo closed her eyes and took calm, even breaths until the presence faded. Then, she resumed packing. Pick dress, fold neatly, pack into bag, repeat, and as she reached for her journal, the tendrils that had been creeping through her mind for several minutes locked in, and a sweet, rough voice said _Shilo. You're worthless. You're no better than them. Rotti said no._

"What?" she said faintly.

She shook her head to dispel the insidious thing growing inside. Evil still in an embryonic stage could be smothered. Couldn't it? She'd been hearing it for some time, whispers and echoes, and when she stopped what she was doing to close her eyes and meditate, it went away immediately. So, she dropped what she held, knelt in the middle of the floor, and closed her eyes. Shilo blocked out the noise of traffic, sirens, adverts blaring, and stilled herself. Darkness was the only piece of the world allowed in.

It grew. From some place, a sliver of it broke off and nestled in tight. It built and built, hands reaching up into the sky of her awareness, and then it was shouting her name, and _WORTHLESS! WORTHLESS! WORTHLESS!_

She hollered.

Months now. Oh, God, had it been months? It had started with that disconnected feeling. She couldn't feel much at all in regards to other people; after friendships and relationships reached a certain point, her heart shut down. Now, she was hearing things. It was like a web of self-loathing, spun by a being that knew her every thought but somehow wasn't her. It sounded crazy. She would never be able to explain it to anyone. She cautiously looked, again, in her mirror. She'd sung to this mirror and peeked between her legs with this mirror and plucked at her eyebrows with this mirror. It wouldn't hurt her.

"Who's there?" she asked the glass.

For a long while, nothing happened. She could almost convince herself that she'd been dreaming, or that the post-coital haze had triggered some very, very unusual hallucinations. She could pack this mirror, too, and remember all this later and smile to herself at what a silly person she could be.

Shilo in The Mirror smiled coldly.

* * *

Outside, summer shifted into evening, and a limo waited on her street like Cinderella's pumpkin-turned-carriage. Luigi didn't look up when she hopped in and slammed the door. The man was rigid in the leather seat, face hidden in paperwork, an open briefcase beside him. Shilo slapped her suitcase onto an empty place and sat, resisting the instinct to kiss Luigi on the cheek and interrupt his work.

"The fuck's with the suitcase? You aren't moving in, you know," he said warily.

"No shit. I thought you'd like an overnight," she smiled. There were glasses of wine cooling on a holder. She refrained, wanting to retain her sobriety for the evening. "or two. What do you think?" He glared at her, indicating that he was so not in the mood to talk to her and was obviously very involved in what he was doing. She pressed her lips together and looked out the window. A few years ago, she'd have done so sullenly, sighing and mumbling, and then come back with a sarcastic quip.

Sometimes, grown men had to work and act professional. GeneCo was a business, like any other, and the Largos weren't just figureheads. Being with Luigi in any capacity meant she'd have to fade into the background. She was willing to not have his undivided attention all of the time. She was less willing to acknowledge, even to herself, that she was with Luigi in any sense. If she kept her personal feelings out of it, then this would be just about regaining what she had rightfully earned and, according to Mr. Rotti Largo, deserved more than Amber. Power was easy.

The limo would take them to the opera house. Luigi said it was different from the one she'd been to three years ago. The city was changing. Under Amber's newfound growth and guidance, in homage to her father, the aesthetic was growing older and more lavish. Rock and roll as a culture was being relegated to the poor. The heiress was becoming an adult, and party life was no longer so encouraged with the wealthy.

Neither was charity, Shilo reflected with a scowl. She, technically, would have qualified for the assistance that went to the city's many orphans. It had been shut down, along with soup kitchens and a few places that gave away free furniture. Nobody deserves shit, eh, Rotti? What ever happened to buying people's love with leftovers and handouts?

"What's wrong with you?" Luigi asked.

She looked at him. He'd been watching her, and she felt how her face was creased with frown lines. She shook her head.

"Nothing, Mr. Largo," she said quietly.

"Don't give me that. You had a mighty sour look on your mug. Are you sick?" It wasn't concern, there. Not for her, anyway. She could almost see him reaching for the hand sanitizer.

"I am perfectly healthy," she said, smirking. He wasn't going to drop it, so she made something up. "What if your sister doesn't like me?"

He scooted over so their legs almost touched. He didn't seem to know what to do with himself, whether to put an arm around her or grab her hand. But he wanted to do something; she could tell, and she smiled shyly. When was the last time someone had made her feel that in any degree? "Great for us if she doesn't, gives us a chance to rub a lemon in her wounds. Right?"

"Yeah," she said. She reached over him for his paperwork and pen, handing them both to him. She was certain he'd gotten an eyeful from the lean across his lap. He kept his eyes trained on the numbers and went back to work.

Shilo almost leaned in to his side. From there, he'd hook one arm around her and continue working. It would be cozy and simple. She almost did it, but she didn't.

Once there, she was whisked away by a GENtern, where her dress was disparaged and trashed. Shilo liked that dress and wanted to get it out of the trash. "Oh, honey. Honey, no. It's fine for the streets," a redhead said distastefully. "but not for this." They laced her into a new realm of thin and did her hair as she put on the dress: emerald green silk, sleek and unfussy down to her feet and draping out behind her in a manageable train. They straightened her hair, which she hated. She liked the normal texture of her hair, when she looked more like Marni than ever. She said as much.

"Amber hated Marni," one woman said. " _Hated_ her. Trust us; this is for your own good."

Shilo touched her hair and bound it up in a ponytail. If Amber was going to hate her, she'd do it on her own merits. "Then it's a good thing I have you ladies." She turned and faced the trio of women, ready to attack her with powders and paints. She didn't see what was so terrible about the way she'd done herself up for the evening. "Why did she hate Mom?"

"Wait. You're Shilo?" the redhead said incredulously.

"Yes. Here." She fished about in her purse and held out her ID as proof. "One of life's little miracles, I guess. What about Mom?"

Red was elbowed out of the way, and another lady took up the gossip. "She moved in when Amber was a teenager. Rotti spent all his time and love on her. Amber was neglected."

Red glowered. "Neglected? Oh, boo hoo. That brat had nannies. She had boy toys as soon as she figured out how to fuck. That girl wanted for nothing, and the way I heard it, Marni didn't want Rotti to spend so much on her. She-"

"HEY. Where is she?" Luigi yelled, appearing in the doorway.

Immensely relieved to see him, presumably because it meant she wouldn't have to listen to any more nonsense, Shilo pushed away from the chair and fairly skipped to be at his side. "You showed up just in time. They talked my ears off," she complained.

"We weren't done," one woman said meekly. The other two nodded vehemently. "We could improve on her-"

Luigi's glare silenced her. Noses dramatically in the air, he and his date stalked off. The opera house was beautiful, and dark to the point where Shilo eventually and apologetically held on to Luigi's arm. She did so gently, hardly grasping the fabric. It was all she could do not to fall. Everyone mixing around her was so elaborately dressed. She stared... at the people, at the decorations, at the grand ceilings and balconies extending into the heavens.

They ascended the stairs, several sets, to reach their seats. Shilo couldn't help the flicker of her nerves at the thought of facing Amber Sweet.

* * *

It didn't turn out to be that dramatic. There were a few rows of red seats, and closest to the railing was a woman in a gold dress, her back to them. Her shoulder blades cut attractive lines in her tanned skin, and her black hair was gathered elegantly over one shoulder. She leaned on an arm, the light shining on her neck and profile. Amber glowed.

Pavi was in a corner, softly kissing a young thing. Her leg was at his back. Shilo noticed, stifled a laugh, and quickly averted her eyes. Luigi led Shilo to the front row. He sat at Amber's left side and dragged the girl down beside him.

"Sister," he acknowledged curtly.

She sucked on her lips and looked at them both. "Hi, Luigi. Shi, what a nice surprise."

"Lovely to see you," Shilo said, surprised indeed by Amber's manner.

"It's funny if you think about it. I don't think my big brother's had a date since high school," Amber said. Luigi scowled.

"Oh, this isn't a date. He just wanted to impress me enough so I'll blow him later," Shilo said brightly. She put her arm next to Luigi's and did not try to take his hand.

Amber blanched. "Eww."

Shilo smirked and settled back in her seat. She wouldn't be able to see more than stick figures at this distance. Moneyed individuals spent their fortunes oddly; wouldn't they want to _see_ the show, not just hear it?

Luigi leaned in close to her, holding out a black box. "Opera glasses?" he offered. She took it, and put the box in her lap. He removed the lid for her, and on the velvet inside were gold and white opera glasses, delicate, gleaming, beautiful.

"Oh," she said in wonder, running her hands over the box.

"Looking sharp, Wallace," he said in her ear. She blushed and thanked him.

They were soon upstaged. A man came up to Amber, pressing a drink in her hand and a tender kiss to her cheek.

"Hi," Amber said, at once sparkling anew. He sat down. He had the look of a poor poet, sweet-faced and uncalculatingly intelligent. His shoulders were broad, and he commanded respect and attention, as anyone with Amber should.

Shilo was familiar with who he was. Leonard Slates was a mogul in his own right. Heir to a soft drink company, he'd grown up pampered and never knowing hunger or loneliness. He'd been trained to be in the public eye, was known for his forays into failed businesses and a brief musical career. He fell from grace when he got hooked on Zydrate. They made sense as a couple, really, and from the way they acted, they seemed to be well and truly in love. She leaned forward in her seat to see him. Yellow hair, silver eyes, and Amber was fawning over him, purring like a kitten.

He snapped his hands and ordered a servant bring him Amber's possession. His attendant jumped to perform this task, and Leonard turned to address his audience.

"Mister Largo," he said humorously. "Good to see you."

Luigi frowned. "Yeah, yeah."

"Still not warming up to me? Have you tried switching to decaf?"

"That's a horrible idea!" Shilo laughed.

He saw her and she smiled warmly. "So he hasn't scared off all of the girls. Who might you be?"

"I'm Shilo." She extended her hand. He shook it.

"Shi, this is Leonard Slates," Amber said, putting a hand on Leonard's shoulder. There wasn't a hint of jealousy there. She just couldn't seem to resist touching him and used any excuse to love up to him.

Slates' servant held out a bag to Amber. "No, no, you idiot, I'm the one who gives it to her," he berated the man. "Get out. You're useless."

The man ran away, terrified.

Leonard grinned cheekily. "I'm only kidding. That was record fast. He should get a raise, if the world was fair." He took the bag from Amber and retrieved a little box. He dropped to one knee before her, and she paused. Once it dawned on her what was happening, she gasped, hands flying up to her mouth. Her bright blue eyes almost popped right out of her skull.

"I told you I'd get you a ring. Give me your hand," he said seriously. She held it out. She was trembling. He popped the box open, and the diamond dazzled. He slid the ring onto her finger. There wasn't a proposal, exactly, or a proclamation of love. All he said was "Let's get married."

"Yes," Amber agreed breathlessly. "Oh, I will!" He pulled her to her feet and kissed her and everyone below cheered soundly. Luigi's jaw was dropped open. Shilo gently closed it. Poor Luigi. It was even worse when Amber turned to him and said, "I _told you_ he was going to marry me. Told you so." She mouthed the word 'cunt.'

The show itself was breathtaking. A blood feud, a tragic love story rife with misunderstandings and ending in suicide. It reminded Shilo of Shakespeare. Leonard bossed the people around them the entire time, but that wasn't what struck her as dangerous. It was the love that Amber showed to him, unashamedly and without reservation. On its own, it was a quality that could be exploited, but reciprocated...

Yes, it was dangerous, that Amber's fiancee was so _suitable_. It cheered Shilo that, in the dark, Luigi's hand sought and found hers. She felt warmed by it. It wasn't until she sleepily rested her head on his shoulder that it occurred to her that this, too, held its own danger.

 


	6. Chapter 6

His mood was awfully bitter by the time they were finally permitted to leave the show. He'd endured his sister's bragging and shrieking and dozens of cameras flashing in her direction. Every day, he'd put up with it, bored and unfocused. The girl on his arm could see that this was torture for him, and when they left the relative anonymity of the dark balcony, Shilo did what she had always done best and hid. She slipped his hand and left him to suffer his sister's good fortune on his own.

She was waiting for him in his room, and he seemed defeated when she opened up her arms. He sank onto the bed, into her embrace. The willowy body, a young girl in green leafing, soothed and petted him, one hand idling spirals on his neck. He'd squeezed the rage from Carmela when she was a risk, combating her ire with violent comfort. He'd fucked GENterns, finding the same violence rising to the surface, the need to control and dominate and suppress them with his hands. He controlled. He subdued. It fed and fueled his own anger, and here she was, stroking it from him. He closed himself off to everything but the feeling of being held. She kissed the top of his head where it rested on her breast.

"Why is it so awful that she's getting married?" she asked. "I don't get it. It's only a ring."

The mood disturbed, he shrugged out of her touch and mumbled, "She'll get rid of me... and Pavi, I guess. There's no reason she'd keep him around. She'll be the main heir." Violently, he began to rip at his clothes. Ascot, shirt, one glove. "Understand? No more money, no more prestige, no more _home_... that's it! I'll lose my third of GeneCo."

She made a face. "What are you talking about? Just because she gets married?"

"It's stipulated in the will, Wallace. First of us to carry on the line gets the lot."

They tensed, both of them, in that instant of frustration. He felt it, a sweet and terrible understanding between them as their aspirations cracked with the weight of Amber's future. Shilo stood, poured him a drink, and said, "Shush. Let me think. We'll find a way, Luigi, okay?"

He grumbled and drank, sourly.

She smiled. "That's exactly the face I made when my dad made me take my medicine."

"Yeah?" He slid glumly into a stiff-backed blue chair.

She turned away from him, a swish of cloth, to examine the multitude of trinkets and treasures in his bedroom. The hardwood gleamed, darkly reflecting the painted ceiling. He had almost as many books as she did, and upon idly picking up a book on psychological disturbances, she found it had notes scrawled in the margins, and several pages were folded over.

"I still say medicine. We both know what it was." Poison. She replaced the book on the pile. "It tasted awful. I never got used to it." Why, oh why, was it so difficult for her to face him? Why did it feel like her clothes weighed half a ton, like she was capable of feeling awkward around someone who was little more than a business associate? She forced herself to pivot on her heels. "Didn't I tell you we could do this?"

"You did," he said warily.

"He's just one man, Luigi. And he has barely any form." She sat in his lap and ran a hand along his bare arm, squeezed the muscle. "Not compared to you."

He brought her closer. "You're a slut, you know that? I don't take orders from anyone."

She reclined like he was a chair, her legs stretched across the chair arm. She adjusted the train and the skirt so it fell across his legs like a blanket. "So what? I'm still the only one who can help you." She took his drink and sipped at it. He eyed her, clear, new tension introduced by her mouth and the germs involved with sharing a drink. His jaw was visibly clenched. She was solemn, not mocking him, as she gently willed him to drink, pressing the glass to his lips. He emptied it.

Shilo would've been content to sit there like that forever, glass in hand, her body nestled comfortably against Luigi Largo's. If she closed her eyes, and brought to mind the metallic smell of medical supplies fresh out of the casing, newly cleaned, she could almost go back to being in her father's lap, when he would cradle her, frantic if he discovered her outside her room, weak and close to unconscious. It wasn't that she wanted Luigi to be that for her. Not at all. True, Nathan had broken her down into a helpless, broken weakling, but he was the only person to hold her for seventeen years. Of course there would be a comparison, weak as it was, drawn up in her mind. Minutes passed; she didn't know how many. She didn't count the breaths, slow and stable, and she shifted closer. The illusion of being held paternally, platonically, was abruptly shattered when a hand grabbed her wrist.

"Wallace," Luigi said roughly. "You told my sister you were gonna blow me."

"Oh." She mentally shook herself to remove the sleepy, comfortable fog. Okay. She could do this and then go to sleep. It was gross to get right into sex after thinking about Nathan, after feeling like a daughter. Unnerved, she took the glass, refilled the drink, slugged it back. The alcohol hit the back of her throat and made her cough ungracefully.

"Legally, you shouldn't be drinking," Luigi lectured her mockingly.

"Like you care." And she was setting the glass down with a decisive clink, and her hands were going around his neck, the fingers intertwining.

She kissed him, and his tongue twisting into her mouth, braver than he had previously, removed all thoughts of being young and innocent. The drink was seeping into her brain, making her feel mildly warm and loose and giddy. Shilo sank to her knees between his legs and unzipped his trousers.

"Just sit back... enjoy..." she said, wrapping her hand around the base, and took him into her mouth. He grabbed her ponytail, trying to shove her head closer and force his cock down her throat. She resisted, reaching up to put pressure on his balls. He squawked in pain and she pulled back, glaring at him in warning. "Either we do this my way, or we don't do it at all."

He scowled. She looked at his cock, about to wrap her lips around it when a silvery voice slipped into her head. That, or it had always been in her head, lying dormant, and now it came out. She stiffened.

_I've got an idea. Why don't you bite it off?_

She closed her eyes, a sudden mental image of blood gushing from his crotch as he screamed in pain. She had sharp teeth. Were they that sharp? Sharp enough to do that?

What THE FUCK was she thinking?

_Come on, he can buy a new one. A thicker one. A vibrating cock with ticklers built in._

Shilo almost giggled and the voice didn't stop. It prodded, felt delicately around in her head for weaknesses.

_Pussy. You little coward, you little NOTHING! You aren't going to do anything, are you? You aren't even going to put that back in your mouth and suck him? What, because you want Daddy to take you away from all this and hold you? He ain't coming back, precious..._

She let go and toppled backwards with a frightened gasp. She scrabbled to her feet and ran into his bathroom, locking the door. It wasn't to keep him out. After all, he didn't try to storm in after her or anything equally dramatic. No, she locked the door to visually tell herself not to leave. Understand that, crazy? Don't leave, don't get up and twist the door knob. Not until you can get control of yourself. She'd never felt dangerous before, not until now.

She counted up to sixty five times before he knocked. He sounded like his voice was just barely controlled at the even near-monotone.

"Are you gonna come out?"

"No," she said when she trusted herself to speak. The voice didn't sound like hers. It was low and rattled coldly. "Go away."

A long exhalation, the sound of a lighter flickering open, catching flame to a cigarette on the other side of the door. "Fuck this." His footsteps, walking firmly away. Still, she didn't leave, frightened, angry, and stuck between tipsy and sober. She didn't cry, but she sure felt like it, and somehow the time passed, enough so that when she left, he was asleep in bed, on top of the covers, stripped down to his boxers.

She felt calmer, her limbs stiff from stubbornly sitting in the corner of a ridiculously lavish bathroom. The voice was gone, absorbed into the stillness of her meditation. She knelt on the bed, careful not to disturb him, and watched the rise and fall of his breath, air moving through his body. It was a nice body, too, long, lean, angular and undeniably masculine. Every man on Crucifixus tried to doll himself up and compete with the women for prettiness. Not Luigi. He was plain. She liked the scars, the one sort of imperfection, and that his skin was waxed smooth all the way down. There wasn't any anger or confusion on his face when he slept. His mouth hung a little open, and his head didn't exactly rest on the pillow. He was off-kilter. And wasn't that fitting?

She shed the formal attire, laid down, and turned away from him. He was gone by early morning, waking her up in the process of dressing and shaving and leaving; she blearily listened and then went back to sleep as the door closed. Shilo didn't completely wake up until late into the afternoon, and she found a note beside her. He'd be gone all day, and this wasn't where she'd be sleeping for the rest of her visit. He'd had her things moved there, and he'd see her at six, for dinner.

All of this was worded coarsely, peppered with scribbles, vulgarities, and cross-outs. She grinned. It wasn't a form letter; not that she'd expected any letter. She kissed the paper and felt a little giddy.

* * *

He hadn't set her up with a room. In her experience, rooms provided by men, even wealthy ones, were tiny boxes that needed cleaning and a feng shui expert. This wasn't quite as big and impressive as where she'd slept the previous night, but the fact remained that two of her apartment units could fit inside. She spent the first five minutes in the room jumping on the bed and tossing her clothes around.

Of course, once the mess was made, she'd asked a maid to put it back to normal. The woman had immediately done so, which Shilo found spectacularly hilarious. She could boss a grown woman around and no one would question her. The Largos had spent their lives with the privilege of bossing others around; she could see how it would go to their heads.

When any little girl, daydreaming all alone in her bedroom until the cows and workaholic fathers came home, imagined romantic dinners alone with one of the famously debonair Largo bachelors, she might summon to mind candlelight in gentle darkness, foie gras and leafy plumes of vegetables, all accompanied by the singing of violins. Instead, he came in her door with bags of take-out Chinese food.

Shilo grabbed one of the boxes of food and chopsticks, perching on the bar and stuffing her face with noodles and synthetic broccoli. The chemical taste was only partly covered up with the sauce, but all she'd had that day were crackers and a candy bar, courtesy of the cabinet chock full of snacks by the bar, and any food would have tasted like the best. She said "thank you" around a mouthful of food.

Luigi paced the room, contemplating the carton he was holding with curious disdain. He poked at something with a fork, then speared it, ate voraciously. Kind of like a raptor, she thought with a grin. She pulled the look off her face before he noticed. She was trying to look like a porcelain doll, a pale and pretty ornament placed on the shelf. It worked too well, because he didn't look at or talk to her for a while. She didn't attribute it to much of anything except that he was absorbed in eating and had forgotten she was even there until he started shiftily looking at her. He cleared his throat.

"About last night," he said.

She flushed and tossed the empty carton into the trash. "I don't want to discuss that."

"Wallace." She looked at him nervously, and found that he wasn't angry. Concerned, maybe? "We're talking about this, whether you like it or not."

"Okay." The air didn't crackle with sex or violence. There wasn't a charged dynamic for her to twist and manipulate to her own ends. All Shilo could do was sit and wait for him to yell at her.

"One heartbeat, you're going down on me and everything's... peachy, and then you freeze up and run out. What gives?"

"I don't know," she stammered. Because she didn't. She didn't know how to explain away the behavior to herself, much less to him. "I'm sorry. It's nothing to do with you, okay?"

"No, not okay," he chastised her. "Wallace."

She kicked her legs against the marble. "What?"

He adjusted his ascot in the mirror hanging on the wall and said, "If you said no, I'd have respected that."

"Is that what you think it was about?"

"Yeah," he sneered ineffectively. "I ain't a monster. If you'd said stop-"

Shilo pointed out, "I did, actually. Remember?"

"You didn't _say_ anything. No, what you did... That was a leaf torn right out of Amber's book," Luigi said.

"Your family is _weird_ ," Shilo laughed, wrinkling her nose.

"So was yours. So, what happened? Don't make me beat it out of you."

"Um... honestly?" She strolled leisurely to the window and undid the latch, opened it to feel the summer evening. "I freaked out. Maybe that's silly, I don't know. Sex isn't a problem for me! I do it all the time, and we've been intimate..."

"I'll never get you women," he jeered. He went and leaned on the wall by her. "You've got issues, lady. But don't we all?"

She smiled at him weakly. "I guess. Do you expect me to fuck you now that we've had this chat?"

"Let me think about it." He paused, hand under his chin. "No. You ain't under contract. 'sides, I didn't bring you here for your pussy. You said you'd get GeneCo back for me, and I believe you."

"You do?"

"I said it, didn't I?" he said irritably. "And you make me... feel... more normal than what's usual. I can't be a CEO if I'm washing my hands for the twentieth time."

"Do you do that?" she asked, wide-eyed. He was one of the princes of the world, figuratively speaking. He was a legend, his face plastered on posters and billboards and commercials... He had flaws, but for them to border on liabilities was, in her mind, about as inconceivable as could be.

"I will hurt you if you spread that around," he warned.

"Hey, gimme some credit," Shilo said with a cool, easy smile. She flipped her hair over her shoulder. "I know who I'm dealing with."

He scoffed at the display, easily seen through and dismissed. She'd lost that chip. Couldn't play him the way she had the first time they'd met, and the times after. "Not sure I can say the same. You switch off like a light, and I need to know what to expect from you. You're here for one reason."

"Luigi, what are you saying?" she asked uncertainly.

This next speech seemed to cause him some internal pain, if his grimace was any indication. "If we do fuck, I'll pay you. Jewelry, anything you like, but we'll keep it professional from here. Otherwise, you stay out of my room and work on bringing up my name in the world. Got it?"

"Sure, if that makes you comfortable with me being around," she said too quickly, too calmly. She ignored the twinge - more than a twinge, really - of disappointment, of all the unlikely things. He was right. They could appear as a couple to Amber, but pretending otherwise when behind closed doors was a stupid waste of time. She was working for him, not with him. "Shake on it?"

She held out her hand. He grasped it firmly, the black glove a barrier between them. They shook.

 


	7. Chapter 7

Shilo went back home, but not before she'd, as Luigi had unintentionally and innocently stated, taken a leaf from Amber's book. He said it out of hand and forgotten it. To Shilo, it started a chain of ideas, the lights of a pinball machine as neurons fired. Not taking one of Amber's ideas. The heiress was pretty and dumb as nails. Instead, she viewed the matter more concretely and stole into Amber's room, taking a page from her planner. She read it, copied down the details in the margins of a book, and replaced it carefully. Shilo was gone, having disturbed nothing and alerted no one. Quiet as a mouse.

Everyone alive had a place to call home. Even the dead had their plots of land, vast expanses of the world swallowed up with caverns and crypts for the dear departed. Shilo had her apartment, cheap, untidy, and a welcome relief. It felt like falling into warm arms after being shepherded through a desert by strangers and fiends. She collapsed onto the bed, pulled the covers over her head, and ignored all calls and insistent knocks on the door for the rest of the day, and evening, and not letting conscious thought intrude until the sunlight did. When the lashes of gold pushed through the window to lie across the bed, intrusive heat dripping past the blankets, she stirred and finally got up.

Shilo looked at the copy of the page from Amber's day planner, searching for opportunity. Her eyes focused on one seemingly unimportant event, where there would be no Amber, no reporters to ask questions and draw unwanted attention, and no trouble. "Huh," she said to no one in particular. "I think I have plans in the daytime. Weird."

Her hair curled up in the heat of the day, and she admired that she was Marni's daughter, from the appealing, wide brown eyes to the hair, to... Shilo took a step back and knew that Mom would never in a million years have worn fishnets and skirts this sinfully short. The photographs of her that had peppered the Wallace home showed her, regal, beautiful, and reasonably covered up. That had never ever been Shilo's style, and she'd never been taught shame or modesty.

She caught a ride to the spa, signed herself in under a different name, and undressed in the unisex changing room, her actions of undoing her blouse, unrolling tights, unclasping necklaces and garters, dispensing gold rings into a locker all calming and steadying. Each action was slow and deliberate. She checked a grandfather clock obsessively and, when it was close to ten o'clock, she was careful to pose with one leg stretched on the bench. Leonard Slates came in, not quite on time, but close enough for someone with that much money. Men like that set their own rules. He raised a hand in greeting, then quickly used that hand to cover his eyes with a sharp bark of surprised laughter.

"Sorry!" Shilo apologized, taking a fluffy robe hanging from a hook on the wall. She covered herself up. "I didn't know you'd be here."

"No, ha, I guess you wouldn't know." He swung his arms breezily at his sides. "Breasts, never seen those before," he joked.

She chuckled and sat on the bench, drawing her feet up and under the robe. "Amber let you out? What for?"

"Officially it's none of your business," he scolded her. "A blood transfusion."

"Let me get this straight... she let you out of her clutches for a blood transfusion? Aren't you enough of a pretty boy?" she said with a gently mocking air.

"If anyone's the kept bitch here, darlin', it's you," he retorted.

"What does that make you?" she mused.

"Me? I'm the trophy husband. Or, at least," he said with the sort of easy, suave grin that would make lesser girls feel faint and wet. "I soon will be.

Shilo grinned sheepishly. "Are you going to take her last name? I mean, her original one."

"No, no. I have no wish to be her Mr. Largo. Why do you want to know?"

"It's so romantic!" she lied. "It's the sweetest excuse I've ever heard of for a celebration. Think of the party! She's so gaudy, I bet she'll have ice swans."

"And live ones, too, to escort her down the aisle," he played along. "We'll be sure to invite you."

"Doesn't Amber hate me? That was my impression," she tested.

"Probably at one point. Not so much anymore. My admiration for you must have rubbed off on her."

Shilo blinked dumbly. "Sorry, what?"

A boyish smile. An undone shirt button, and another, until his torso was naked except for a black chain, a silver ankh at the end of it. She noticed the way he stood, slumped yet with definite authority, and that he was slender, not muscular. She noticed that his chest hair was nicely maintained, and the trail of blonde hair down from his navel, descending below his belt... "I had a crush on you after the opera."

Throat dry, she said, "Really?

"Are you kidding? You were a fucking goddess! Covered in blood, holding a gun, a rebel... even better when you went into your Zydrate phase."

She'd been smiling up to that point. Then, she flushed and shook her head. "Um... I'm really not a Zydrate user. I never have been. Never will be. Doesn't everyone know that?" She'd been trailed by paparazzi for a while. Some basic facts were known.

"That isn't what I'm talking about, girl."

"Then what _are_ you talking about?"

A girl in stilettos and white came in the door, unapologetic about interrupting the conversation. "Mister Slates, we're ready for you now."

"Fine, fine," he said dismissively. He looked at Shilo. "Not many people know this, but transfusions make me queasy. Sit with me and talk?"

* * *

Drip went the IV through the tube. The bag of blood was set up, red and rich and full of precious life. It flowed down into Leonard Slates' veins. Leonard tried not to watch his arm, even though he had to look in that direction to talk to Shilo, in a chair next to him. She admired the equipment, the monitors that lied and said he was relaxed. By all accounts, he should have been relaxed. The room was decorated soothingly, and nature sounds played softly in the background- real nature, despite having been disposed of some time ago, still dredged up those ancestral memories of tranquility. Birds twittering, rustling, greenery in soundwaves. A GENtern wannabe, not certified for actual surgeries and definitely not plastic enough to work directly with the Largos, massaged him, pressed down on his chest to get his heart to pump the new blood.

"You can stop now. Enough," he said to the woman, smacking her hands away. "Leave us."

She pursed her lips in unconcealed disapproval. Shilo stuck her tongue out the moment she turned her back and sauntered out.

"Who does she think she is? Come on, really," Shilo complained.

Leonard laughed. "Oh, and you're one to talk! You're a hooker."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"Well, it's not _good_."

"On the contrary." She smiled brightly, and dropped her eyelids halfway, raised one leg until her bare foot touched his leg. "I'm _very_ good."

"Stop that," he said, pushing her foot roughly away.

"Bo-ring. I wasn't going to do anything. Tell me, what were you saying earlier? About Zydrate and me?" she prompted.

"Oh, that," he drawled, making himself comfortable, crossing one leg over his knee. Unused to being turned down, even in fun, Shilo pulled in on herself, squirming at the look he fixed her with. "Sure, Amber told me the whole story. Dear old Rotti had a nasty temper and never did forgive your mother. Some would say living well is the best revenge, right? No, instead he takes you and all but puts the needle in your hand, and someone you barely know and that you somehow trust tells you it's okay for you to take that needle and-"

"Stop!" she yelled, putting her hands over her ears and immediately feeling foolish and childish for it. But she couldn't help it. She trembled at the retelling, and she couldn't bear to hear the conclusion. "I know what I did to her." God forgive her for it, Shilo never could. How could she have known it was Marni? She put her hands down and touched the chair arms with shaky fingers.

He watched her, amused. "Nice daughter. Couldn't have wished for a better one for Rotti's prized gold digger."

Her hands tightened into fists. "Shut your trap," she hissed.

"I thought you wanted me to speak?" he teased.

"Not about her. Not _ever_ about her." She realized she was breathing rather harshly and that her voice was growling. Shilo paused and closed her eyes for a moment, saying to herself, calm. She'd never met Marni. It shouldn't have bothered her. Finally, she said, "I want to know what you meant by 'Zydrate phase.'"

"Oh, after the opera, you know." He shrugged. "You fell in with bad crowd."

"I was seventeen and newly orphaned. What would you have done? No friends, no support from no one..."

"Sure, I understand." He smirked. "Consorting with grave-robbers! What would your father think?"

"Nothing, since he's dead," she said coolly.

"Hey, I don't mean anything by it. But you did pal around with those types. Is that how you got into this?"

"Into what?"

"Turning tricks. I assume you didn't always dream of whoring yourself when you were a little girl," he said.

"Scumbag boyfriends who leeched my inheritance did contribute to that, yes," she said tersely. "I never used the stuff. Zydrate, I mean. It's from the dead. It's not _clean_." She huddled in the robe. "I like what I do. I have control over my life now."

"That I can relate to. Being strung out makes you think you're in control, little lady, but... the glow is god of all. You need something else to live for."

The flow of blood, it seemed, was endless as it went from plastic bag to fleshy human being. Shilo bent over her arm to lean toward him. "Like what?"

He smiled. "Like love."

* * *

Shilo was at home, painting her nails silver and waiting calmly for something to happen. At a bitch's insistence, she'd gotten something injected in her face at the spa, and obviously she'd taken another something for the pain. It wasn't much, barely enough to dull the senses. She'd sat numbly around her apartment for hours, staring at a spot on the wall and trying to summon the energy to do something about the mess. Her energy had come back in the last hour, now that the city was coming to life and she needed it.

Tonight, she could go dancing. Tonight, she could wear her inappropriate, all-the-way-up-the-thigh boots. There was a world of opportunities outside her door, and responsibility could wait for a little while.

As she was shimmying into a tight black ensemble, however, there was a knocking at her door. She gave an impatient groan and went to answer it, wondering who it could be. There'd been no messages on her machine, and all her bills were paid...

He stood there grimly, hair neat, suit pressed. He held out red flowers. She breathed in roses. They smelled real. She stared at him, and he shoved them toward her.

"Take it," Luigi said gruffly.

She did. "Hi," she said, stepping back to let him in. He turned his nose up at the mess, but then he was straightening her belongings with gloved hands. That was surreal enough for her thoughts to grow cold and shudder to a stop.

"I could get a maid out here," he said. "You don't got to live this way, you know."

"Thanks, but I like it this way. Luigi?"

"What." He stopped what he was doing and stood stiffly, completely out of place and noticeably uncomfortable.

"What are you doing here? What do you want?" she asked.

"You." He didn't try to hold or kiss her. He only stood there, as he was, and she only stood there, the roses in her hand quite forgotten. Thoughtlessly, her fingers curled, and the thorns dug into her palm. Startled by the pain and the red dabs ebbing up from tears in her white skin, Shilo moved and put the flowers down, then went to the sink and rinsed water across her hand. She felt the icy water on her skin, ran it up to her wrists, sending goosebumps shooting up her arms. She could feel Luigi's eyes boring into her back.

Hadn't he said they were keeping this professional? She'd agreed to it. They'd shaken hands, like adults who could fuck and feel nothing at all. That was fine by her. He didn't differ from the norm, and why should he?

"Put the dough on the dresser," she said.

* * *

She extricated herself from his grip. Even in sleep, he held her tightly, as if to crush something intolerable from her, as if to press the best and brightest part of her into his skin. Lacking her, he twisted back, arm reaching reflexively and latching on to a pillow. He brought it close.

Shilo went into the bathroom and didn't come out until she felt safely prettified. Water washed away the smell of sweat and sex, and powder hid the glow in her cheeks. He could find his own way home and retain what memories he wished to, and that's how it would be. She'd work on prying GeneCo from Amber's unworthy hands, and if Luigi wanted, he could have her. Given, of course, that he paid in full before his trousers dropped.

The bathroom door closed with the gentlest click, but he was sitting up, his naked body mostly uncovered by the strewn blankets, and perturbed at her done-up appearance. Her heartbeat quickened and she told herself it could not have been guilt that did so.

"Hi, Luigi," she said softly.

"Where are you going?" he demanded, but the angry tenacity of his voice was dulled by sleep and fear.

"Out." He scowled. She grabbed her purse from the floor, went to the front door, and opened it.

"Wait."

She looked over her shoulder, turned around fully when he didn't talk right away. She folded her arms and frowned. "So? What is it?"

"Don't go. Come on, Wallace. Please." The words tore from his lips; he didn't look to have said them willingly, and there was pain in his eyes.

She shook her head. "Luigi, I have to. I'll see you later."

 


	8. Chapter 8

Her list of demands wasn't long at all. He supplemented her modest suggestions with some of his own gruffly offered contributions, for which she was grateful. She hadn't much of an imagination for riches. Yeah, Shilo had returned and was sitting at the foot of his bed like an obedient bitch hound, and he could almost see her tail between her legs. When she split her legs to stretch, ear to knee and fingers clamped around her toes, the fabric of her dress rode up to display a dark, fatty bruise high on her leg. Luigi looked carefully away from that part of her after that. She'd vanished for a week, and that was her choice. She wanted to act free, and then crawl back to him? Fine, and far be it for Luigi to question her why, or as to the origin of any new blemishes on her body.

"Maybe a fur?" she said uncertainly. "Nothing too ostentatious."

He laughed at the word. Ostentatious. Fuck. Did the girl think she was an intellectual or some shit? Yeah, right. "I'll get you three. One of my consultants can pick 'em out for ya." He pounded his coffee cup down on the chess table. "This won't all fit in that room. Not by a long shot."

"Oh, yeah, that. About that..."

"What is it?"

She paused and sat up. "I want a new room. Need it, actually." Her eyes were lowered in serious inward consideration. The look verged on deranged. "The one next to Leonard's is free."

Luigi tightened his cravat and closely examined the fabric: expensive black cloth studded with moss green diamonds.

It would have been a good, uncomplicated day. Then she had to go and show up. She'd come in with no warning while he was dressing, startling him and necessitating that he step behind a screen, carefully remove and fold his clothes, and start over again. They were awkward, and she was needlessly shy. She'd hesitated there in the doorway for too long until he barked at her to close the fucking door already. She'd jumped. Her bag was removed and she fluffed up her curls, stared at her reflection thoughtfully for a moment, then walked backwards to recline and stretch on his meticulously made bed.

"Well...?" she prompted him.

"Why?" he asked, a sinking suspicion in his gut.

"Just do it, okay? Please?" She smiled.

"Yeah. Okay, Wallace, whatever you say," he said sarcastically. "You're the boss!"

"Luigi, it's what I need to get your company back. By any means."

He could have left it at that and not given her the satisfaction- if she, like all women, became smug whenever men were humiliated- but he couldn't help it. "You aren't going to fuck him. Are you?"

Her head turned so fast that her hair whipped. Shilo Wallace stood up and touched his shoulder. He flinched, thinking about what she might have done with that hand, where she could have been the last six nights, whose bodies she'd crawled over and squeezed between her legs and inside her. These thoughts slithered in his head, maggots in eye sockets, building to a frenzy. The desire to hurt something breathing with a nice, sharp knife became appealing. He wanted disgusting, hot blood spurting over his hands, then a hotter shower. Her filth became his.

Except she did something downright odd. She wrapped her arms around his middle, her hands coming to rest between his ribs. Shilo stood on tiptoe and pressed her face against his back. He stiffened, of course, since it was an intrusion by the source of his anxiety. After not too long, though, he became calmer. It didn't seem so bad, and she didn't smell filthy. He took harsh, open-mouthed breaths, losing the rage in his confusion. She disoriented him with ease.

Shilo said softly, "I don't have definite plans to do do so, but it'd be a good idea to have an eye on him, if not more. I want to keep him in my sights. And if I did..." She whirled herself in one easy movement in front of him, and fiercely said, "Wouldn't that crush Amber? Wouldn't it destroy her?" He could see his bloodlust reflected in those eyes.

"I guess." He scratched his head. "I'm not sure you're gonna want that room. See, the fact of the matter is-"

"Doesn't really matter, Luigi. Please, just let me do this. I won't tell you any of the details." He grunted out a "fine" and, satisfied, she went on, "How long has it been since Amber used?"

"Zydrate? How should I know?" he grumbled.

"Okay," she said slowly. "But she is on the wagon?"

"Yes. I hate it."

"Don't you worry, Mister Largo. One thing at a time."

* * *

From then on, she'd haunt the guest wing. What she immediately realized was that this could only be Marni's room. So what if the furniture was changed to suit Shilo's tastes and Luigi's specifications. She still found a picture of Marni, all but hidden between a bookshelf and a corner. When the daughter admired the sweetly smiling woman, when she nestled herself into the corner and breathed in the air, it was soothing and safe, like a soft kiss on her cheek. Luigi could have warned her. Oh, but he had tried, and she'd ignored him. She confirmed her suspicions into hard proof later on with an innocent question to a GENtern. This was the room where Marni was solicited for sex- by her lover, her husband-to-be, and that was a difference. Marni was fate's whore. Shilo was everyone else's.

Amber was having a grand party in about a month. That was how long Shilo and Luigi had to ruin her. Miss Sweet had countless procedures planned out in carefully spaced increments for the weeks to come; too far apart, and no one would notice the change. Too close, she'd have to up her prescription and risk another round of addiction, blue intoxication that would spiral her exquisite, pampered corpse into shame and ruin. There were ways to unbalance her. Anyone who'd spent an hour watching bad teen comedies new that, and Shilo had had years to do just that.

While she waited for Amber to knock next door, Shilo rummaged nervously through the room, searching for clues as to who her mother was, really. She couldn't have been the angel her father always made her out to be. After all, Rotti had thought the world of her. What was that all about? She came up with nothing and had to admit to herself that she was interested, and invested in her past in a way that probably wasn't healthy. Life was about the future. Moving on. Shilo knew how to abandon old hurts, rise up from the ruins, and clear the way. She'd done so before.

After the opera, heartbroken and alone, she'd found a different life. It had to be better, she thought, because anything was better than being caged and manipulated.

_You just keep telling yourself that_ , the voice taunted.

"Oh, shut up!" Shilo shot back before she could stop herself. Not that anyone was near to see, but she still laughed nervously and looked around the empty room. "Oh shit, I'm talking to myself. You're officially a crazy person, Shi."

The door slammed. Not her door. Soft wet noises, kisses. These walls were paper thin, and Shilo was grateful for the poor construction work. The talking, unfortunately, was muffled, and, in trying to listen in, she fell asleep on her bed, tangled up in the lush blanket brought from home. Her phone was beeping on her arm. Luigi, wanting sex, and she kept her eyes closed until the ringing subsided and the recorded message played out.

"How's about we see each other tonight?" his voice crackled out. "I could get a block taped off just for us. What do you say? Let me know."

He was just like all of them. Them being the male species. Sleep gave her a buzz where the voice vacated, to hover in the uncertain place between her dreams and reality. Here, after just waking up, she felt more herself. Even if that meant less alive. She got up, put a silky robe on over her dress, brushed the fallen makeup from under her eyes, and knocked on Leonard's door. He was surprised to see her.

"Shilo! Come in." He moved aside. Amber had left, but the air still smelled like her perfume. It rankled in Shilo's throat. Leonard looked pretty and unkempt, his hair a bit mussed, the top button of his shirt undone. She brushed past him and sank into a chair.

"Do you ever feel like you're just a piece of meat?" she asked.

"No. Never." He watched her with concern. "Trouble in paradise?"

"Who said I was in paradise? Luigi can get anything in the world with a snap of his fingers, and now so can I. So why do I feel so..."

"Miserable?" he guessed.

"Used."

"I have no fuckin' clue. Maybe because you let people use you. Just like your father," he said, and she flinched. God. Did he have to be so right? Did he have to be so cute? Like a puppy, with light hair that flopped about when he turned his head at that angle.

"It's true. I'm a giver," she sighed jokingly, turning her mood about as quick as she could. "Want to find out how much I'll give?"

"Thanks, but I'm happily tied down to one woman. Yikes. What's wrong with me?" He grimaced.

"You're in love, remember?" She went to him and twined her arms around his neck, gazing up at him. "Is Amber the jealous type?"

"Is Luigi?" He looked deeply into her eyes, grinned, then pushed her away. "What're your plans for the evening?"

"I think he wanted to fuck me. But I don't feel like it."

"Play hooky from work and come with me to help with the wedding!" he said with false enthusiasm. Chipper attitudes were disturbing on any adult not in cartoon form. Even then, she'd never had the patience for cartoon shows with enthusiastic, hyper people.

She laughed. "Um, no thanks. I think I'd rather suck it up and stroke his ego." She reached over and mussed his hair further with an impudent expression, her tongue stuck out between her teeth, and darted to the door.

"Sucking and stroking, eh?" he said.

"Hey, sticks and stones will never hurt me. Have fun with your wedding plans!"

* * *

It was impressive, really, what his influence could do. True to his word, Luigi Largo had the whole street shut down for them. A bulletin was sent via radio and broadcast out to the general public that it was a quarantine zone and that absolutely everyone was to stay away, or risk contamination. Shilo met him at an Italian restaurant where a trembling gopher would stand in as the waiter. Luigi looked at his watch and scowled at her.

"You're late," he barked at her.

"So? I walked." He snapped his fingers and the gopher scurried up to collect her jacket and purse. She resisted the attempt, stowing her things away herself.

"You called me back at the last minute, and you show up fifteen minutes late," he said, jabbing an accusatory finger in her face.

She scoffed and brushed it aside, fixing him with a sullen glare. "We both know why I'm here. Cut the crap. Okay? I'll sit through dinner with you, if that's what you really want me to do, but I'll be just as happy to get straight to the fucking." Shilo went to the one table, set up in the middle of the floor, and placed her hands on the edge, leaning forward to give Luigi a view of how perfect her ass looked in the dress he'd bought her. She looked over her shoulder. "Tell me you don't want this."

Step by step. Heavy shoes on the ground until he reached her, where he gripped the bow around her waist and yanked her roughly upright. He snarled, "Enough. Sit the fuck down."

Shaking, heart pounding, she did.

"You're disgusting," he insulted her.

Her ears burned. She pushed her hair back from her shoulder and sought for something to say that could let him know she was fine being used, as long as he let her get it over with, as long as she had that much control... "I thought-" she tried.

"I wanted your company. Fuck, you're messed up." He sat opposite her. "Wallace, I said we were going to dinner, right? Or am I suffering from amnesia?"

"No, that is what you said." Stubbornly, she thought to herself, but I'm not wrong. "Aren't I your whore?"

"If that's how you want me to treat you. I don't give a fuck," he barked. "So-rry for not wanting to have dinner alone! Next time, I'll just eat you out and call it a night. How's that, Wallace?"

Miserably, she bent her head forward as if in prayer and nodded. "You honestly want me to believe this isn't just about having some girl at your beck and call?"

"Maybe a bit. But, Wallace." He asked for vodka and sent the gopher running. "I'm nearing forty. That's old enough to start outgrowing juvenile fantasies."

The conversation died, and she picked through her dinner, appetite killed by discomfort. She hated silence shared between people. It was much worse than being on her own. Finally, she forced herself to speak.

"It's strange to find myself in my mom's old room. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, right?" she said.

He stopped with the fork halfway to his mouth. "Yeah. How 'bout that." He resumed chewing, and she leaned with her elbow on the table, watching the muscles in his jaw work. This, of course, made him stop again and glare. "Something on my face?"

"No." She shucked off one high heel under the table and carefully stroked up his ankle, under his pant leg. He looked at her, one eyebrow arching wildly. "Tell me something, Mister Largo."

"What?" He finished the bite on his fork and then set it down. He gave no indication that anything was happening under the tablecloth when her foot went higher.

"Why me? You could have bullied anyone into being good company. A GENtern in street clothes, a hooker with a heart of gold, or a model, or one of Pavi's leftovers." Her toes tickled at his calf, and she smiled impishly. This was a game she knew how to play. This was something she understood. Both her forearms were down on the table, hands flat, and he suddenly leaned far forward, his gloved hands flying out to clamp on her arms, pinning her there with enough force to make her squeak.

"No one said I don't get a kick from this. And so do you, you slut." He tightened his grip, hard enough to almost bruise the pallor. "Don't you?"

Her movements under the table stilled, and her breaths hissed. No one around. The gopher was banished to the kitchen, no doubt biting his nails and hyperventilating in terror as he arranged Luigi's schedule for the next day.

"That's... not an answer," she said. It was strangely thrilling that her arms were trapped, that she was forced to lean toward him.

"Ain't it?" He grinned darkly, the imitation candlelight casting a sickly orange glow to the harsh contours and angles of his face. "You don't have to be here. Act like I own you if you want. Act like I tamed you, go ahead. Tell everyone you want, including yourself. Just know this..."

"What...?" Close enough to kiss.

He approached and said against her parting lips, "I'll know you're lying."

 


	9. Chapter 9

In the following weeks, she insinuated herself into their lives more and more, until it would have seemed unnatural for her not to be there. No longer bothering with the disguise of a silent, timid consort, hovering delicately in the background, Shilo made an effort to know and ingratiate herself to each person. It was important to be neither accessory nor appliance, but a human being capable of providing as much amusement and faculty as any other. Visits with Leonard were stitched together by their unserious conversations, the undisguised cruelties and even more obvious touches, both of which sent Shilo whirling on the inside. She was, after all, very young, and only a few weeks past her twentieth birthday; it was still astonishing that she could sit and talk and flirt with this particular handsome, powerful man... who was engaged to Amber.

That didn't stop her in her tracks, even when, in spending time with Amber, she saw that her love did not waver. Leonard would whittle away his leisure days with GENterns, dancers, and fans, and still when he sat down to dinner, Amber spoke without suspicion and touched without reserve. The formerly selfish brat shared all of herself, and not just her body. That, she said to Shilo, had once been public property, available to anyone with a Zydrate gun, and it had meant nothing.

"Not that I look down on you," Amber said hastily. "Fuck, you're practically my family, Shilo!"

That was a close one. Too close. She could have been family, Luigi's blood relative. "Had she never fled, you'd be mine," he'd said, and those words came back.

If they'd been related, that would make their activities all kinds of wrong, and not the fun kind of taboo. She and Luigi understood each other now, and even if the sex remained shallow, it was explosive. Memorable. They'd recently introduced methods of restraint into their games, and Luigi Largo, notoriously finicky control freak, had been bound and fondled into sweet submission.

Voices echoed in the dark. She became familiar with the sharp, angry thoughts in her head, those that spoke in a different tone from her own, occupying the same space as her memories so when she thought, even briefly, of the past, it would come out, creeping, crawling, stretching. As a girl and then as a young woman, she'd seen dark shadows cross her father's aging face and heard the acrid sting folding into his words all the times he thought she was sleeping. She had chalked it all up to a physician's stressful, thankless job. But now, when the beast within took on more of its own shape and personality, she wondered if that was the explanation, after all.

He hadn't been free, and that had consequences on a man's spirit. Shilo liked to think she was free, even when the rules of society made her a slave. They were both broken, Shilo and Nathan, a long time before the opera. The question, now, was what shape her broken self had taken.

Her fragment was not Nathan; it didn't tell her to stay in her room and watch TV, to curl into a toddler's nightie and cling to teddy bears, to play the part of both daughter and reincarnated, immortal wife. It couldn't have been Marni, although it did bring her strange, alien comfort. It meant she was never all alone.

* * *

Luigi was in hell. More accurately, he was in his pop's office, behind the desk he'd always wanted to call his own. It sure as shit felt like he was in the hottest part of hell.

He hated his life and he hated himself, and he didn't know what the fuck to think of Shilo and his deal with her. He didn't know why he'd let things go this far. What was defective in the perfect form of Luigi Largo that would reduce him to his? To be turned on by a common whore who wasn't even that hot, to fuck her in ways that he should have found degrading... She was contaminated. She was trash.

It would have been acceptable if she was just his sperm dumpster. But he wasn't entirely sure that was the case, here. In his bed, he enjoyed feeling how her panting body slowed into its drowsing breaths. He got a chuckle from her snoring, too. She slept naked on her stomach, and Luigi would peel back the covers and lazily regard the line down her back. In his bed, she gave generously, sucking him hard until he cried out and then closing her legs around him once he shoved inside her. He forced himself not to sleep after, because she'd be gone; yeah, he knew that was how it worked, but it still pissed him off. How dare she? Who did she think she was, that sleazy little tramp? To make up for some of that, he marked her up as much as he could when she was with him. He dug his fingers into her hips, bit at her throat, left evidence that he'd been there all over her skin.

Even all that she put him through would've been tolerable, barely, except she'd cut him off a few days ago. She'd apologized and blamed being on the rag, which was fucking bullshit. She gave good head. Why couldn't she just do that?

Fuck. No access at all. He wasn't like Pavi; he wasn't gonna throw her down and fuck her senseless. Not without her permission.

A gopher asked if he needed anything.

"Coffee. Get it right this time," he snapped, and then he was alone.

He'd played behind the desk when he was a kid, bothering his pop, yammering and going through his pockets for loose change until Ma swatted the back of his head and scooped him up.

This was a good place for kids. Clean, fun, and plenty of staff to make sure they didn't murder each other. He smiled. No way was he getting soft in his old age. Fuck, _he'd_ arm the little bastards himself. Whoever his breeding bitch was would have to put up with it or get the fuck out.

His nostrils were assailed with the airy, flowery scent he'd come to associate with the bimbo Wallace. He turned around with an exasperated, put upon sigh. She stepped in, smiling eagerly, waving a peacock feather. She tickled his nose.

"Tonight's the night!" she crowed. He picked her up and swung her into his lap, shifting uncomfortably as she placed her legs on either side of him. Her skirt was altogether too short for her to be straddling him.

"You gonna tell me what for?" he asked.

"No." She kissed his cheek and draped her arm around his neck, tickling and touching with the feather. He removed the tacky prop with an irritated snort. "It'll only make you mad, Luigi, so no."

"Oh, no. You brought it up. What happens tonight?"

"If you must know," she pouted, getting up off his lap, "I'm going to seal the deal with Leonard."

He stewed silently.

"Isn't it exciting? We've been building up to this for weeks." Her smile was so broad, so stretched it looked pained and nervous. "Wish me luck?"

"Why would I do that?"

"Oh, honey. Oh, no, precious, are you jealous?" She bent down to nuzzle at his neck. He protested with a squawk and shoved her against the desk. The breath knocked out of her, she said, "Don't be mad at me! I'm only doing this for you!"

"Nah, not mad. Disappointed. Your dad wasn't the only one with hopes for you, you obnoxious bitch," he jeered.

"Huh?" She caught her breath, gripped the edges of the desk and hauled herself up so she could sit and swing her legs up. The fabric rustled and slid. Fortunately, he'd taken out nothing, so nothing was disturbed.

"That's your plan? You're going to whore yourself out to someone- who, BY THE WAY, is taken and pretty fucking delighted about that- because you ain't got the brains to dream up a better way? I thought you had potential. All that reading you used to do."

"What are you talking about? I don't read that much," she said. "Not around you."

Quiet for a moment. He touched her leg, thumb idling circles on the place above her knee.

"Used to come in here when you were growing up. Sit in here when Pop and all them was asleep, turn on the vid and see what that orphan Shilo Wallace was up to." He peered at her intently to see her reaction. She went still and almost frightened, mouth falling open and shadows spreading in her eyes. "Sometimes you was asleep, sucking on your thumb. Didn't start touching yourself until later on. But know what? Most of the time, you'd be reading, a big ass book on your lap." His hand squeezed her leg. "You're a hell of a lot smarter than this slut you're playin' at."

"You like it," she protested in a weakly playful voice. The carefree borders had cracked and wrinkled, and she looked down at his hands. His hands showed his age, the wrinkles in direct contrast to her smooth skin.

"Not if it replaces your brain. So figure something else out."

"Luigi, I can't," she tried.

"Why the fuck not?"

"Because you're jealous and you don't want me to sleep with him!" she yelled, skittering off his desk and retreating. Stunned, he just watched. She pirouetted and added, "My dad was smart. He was also a horrible human being. I hate him."

"You hate him? Why?"

"Are you kidding?" She laughed, forced and abrupt. "For what he did to me! For what he did to my mother. Rotti was right. He poisoned me, and he killed Marni. How do you forgive something like that?"

"It never happened! My dad lied to you," Luigi brayed, and it wasn't until the horror visibly took over Shilo that he realized his mistake. "Oh, shit."

"'Oh, shit' is right," she mimicked after a long silence. Luigi could feel his heart pounding. She hadn't known. It was a family secret better kept, and she sure wasn't family. "What do you mean, he lied?"

"Shit. Oh, shit. Fucking shit." He put his hands briefly over his face, then smoothed them back over his hair. "Yes, alright? The doc didn't know. He thought he'd killed Marni. It wasn't. Uh, it wasn't an accident, but... it wasn't your dad."

"God. What are you saying? I can't believe this. I can't _fucking_ believe this," she burst out, starting to panic.

"Calm down!"

"I can't, I-" Her face creasing with suspicion, she hissed, "How long have you known about this?"

"... We all knew about it, Shilo. Amber, Pavi, and me, since it happened. We knew at yours and your ma's funeral."

"What else?" she coldly asked, trembling.

He sighed and decided not to lie. She could take it. He thought she could take it. "All of it! That you were alive, and your dad had you locked up and drugged, and it was my dad's doing." He got up out of his seat and put a hand on her shoulder. "You gonna be okay?"

"Get your hand off me," she said, stepping back. Thinking better of it, she stepped forward. "Fuck you. I'm fucking Leonard, and it's not for you. You're going to see red because you love thinking you own me. You bastard. You and my dad and Rotti, you're all cut from the same cloth. I hate you and your whole ridiculous family." She slapped him, held the glare as his heart constricted, and ran out.

* * *

Amber heard angry shouting, and a weird, rhythmic slapping. What the fuck? She headed further into the cold warehouse of a kitchen, where private chefs were supposed to be, to make whatever her heart desired, whenever she desired. It was underground, refrigerated, and normally quiet except for the sounds of cooking and sizzling. Instead, she found her brother, a cleaver in hand, standing before a pretty e-fuckin'-normous slab of meat.

He raised his arm, swung down hard, chopped into the flesh. Reaching into his back pocket for the silver remote, Amber shut off the music. Luigi kept chopping. Amber cleared her throat. He kept chopping. He wasn't chopping it to pieces. He was chopping for no reason, raging. Almost funny. It was funny but for the pain written all over his face.

"Brother! Brother, stop," she yelled.

He sank the cleaver down hard into the marbled red-and-white meat, a penultimate stroke and then that was it. He put his palms on the edges of the counter, hunching up his shoulders like Dr. Frankenstein's assistant.

"What are you doing? Are you crazy?" She pushed him hard, twice, to get him to look at her. "This is completely unsanitary! You don't belong in the kitchen!"

"I needed something to do. Fuck, I'm half crazy."

"Please, you're totally crazy." She smirked. "I'll get you locked up once I'm married. Pavi, too, but not together. I'm not cruel."

"HA. You know where your husband-to-be is?" he sneered.

"No. I don't keep him on a leash... outside the bedroom," she said with a smirk. "Why? Did you want him to fuck all your tension away? Hate to break it to you, dear, but he likes what I got."

"Can it. I think you need to watch your ass. Someone's chasing after his."

"You mean cheating?" She leaned over the counter, checking her make-up in the black, reflective surface. "I trust him."

Curious that he would bring it up. Her honey was around lots of choice slices, but she was the tastiest, and their love was real. It wasn't manufactured in a damn warehouse by scientists. Synthetic and cold. She liked her genetics that way, not her mates. Leonard understood her. He was ruthless, she was a bitch, but when they were together, they were as tender and affectionate as she'd always dreamed.

"Trust is important. If you can't trust him, who can you trust," he eventually mused. Luigi was a bizarre man, swinging from out of control fury to quiet melancholy and back again. He hadn't killed in weeks. What was that doing to him? It was like if Pavi didn't get laid. It would make him even more unsettled than he already was.

"Yeah? Where's Shilo?" she retorted sweetly. She ran her tongue over her front teeth. "Oh, wow, she's the reason you're chopping raw meat, isn't it? Too rich!" She laughed helplessly and was astonished when he started screaming bloody murder.

"Shilo? SHILO? YOU THINK I CARE ABOUT THAT FUCKING WHORE, HUH? BECAUSE YOUR HUSBAND IS SOOOOOO PERFECT, LOOK AT HIM, LOOK AT YOUR FUCKING PERFECT MARRIAGE WITH THE PERFECT SWANS! YOU'RE NOTHING BUT A DRUGGED OUT TRAMP AND YOU ALWAYS WILL BE! I DON'T CARE ABOUT THAT PEASANT! YOU FUCKING BITCH, I AIN'T INSECURE-" And he broke off to sob. "Daddy..."

How embarrassing. Amber had to deal with so much. Her masseuse would need to be called in as soon as she got back to her room. She sighed and put an arm around Luigi, drawing him into an awkward hug. She clapped his back. "It'll be okay. If you break up with her now, you'll avoid most of the diseases."

"Uh-huh, uh-huh," he said.

"You're still out of the house once we tie the knot. Nothing personal."

Aside from the fact that she couldn't stand the look and smell of her brothers, how they reminded her of the father who'd scorned her, and that they'd known her before she was Amber Sweet, no. It wasn't personal at all. She chuckled and felt him shake, crying. He was the most fragile of the Largos, and the most volatile. They might have had more in common if he could calm down and stop dressing like such a dweeb. At least Pavi had some fashion sense.

"And I promise to never tell Shilo you cried over her."

* * *

She sailed into the room and whistled. It was beautiful and all in white, the honeymoon suite. She and Leonard were testing it out to see if it was up to the Sweet-Slates' high standard. Shilo loved having a chance to get away from the family she could no longer stand to be around, even in pretend, and Slates wanted a woman's eye that wouldn't spoil the surprise for his bride-to-be. Leonard slung their overnight bags onto the floor and waltzed about, inspecting the details.

"Delightful. She will just love this. It exudes class."

Shilo peeked into the bathroom. "The tub's big enough to bone her in!"

He pushed her aside and checked it out. "Why, you're right!"

There was wine in a bucket of ice, and fresh fruit dipped in chocolate on a silver platter. It had been a moderate drive, forty minutes with traffic, and they both kicked off their shoes. He declared that it was a night to relax, not drink, and be merry.

She sat on the carpet, legs spreading. "Sounds good to me." There was a bruise on her left calf.

"Where'd you get that?" he asked, poking it so she flinched and pinched at his wrist in retaliation.

"Nowhere." He scoffed, and she admitted, "One of my boys got a little rough, okay? That's it. I made him back off." She smiled and clasped his hand, felt the flutter in her stomach that came whenever she touched him. "Why? You worried about me?"

"Maybe. I don't think women should be abused." He squeezed her fingers, smiled warmly, and let go. "Not even you."

"Aw, I'm touched," she laughed.

He leaned back on his hands. "Yep. So, does this count as my bachelor party? There's booze, a woman of easy virtue..."

"No, it only counts if you get a lap dance." She stood up, beckoning him with her hand close to her mouth. Bemusedly, he got to his feet; she pushed him down to a sitting position on the bed. She went to an antique record player in the corner and picked out a lovely, jazzy vinyl. The music thrummed out.

"An innocent lap dance between friends?" he said.

"Completely." She tore her shirt open. "I won't tell."

As she stepped forward, he chuckled nervously. "What, is there a camera in the room or something?"

"I don't want to get caught any more than you do," she lied. There was no camera. But she'd rub it in Luigi's face good before breaking Amber's heart.

She shimmied, bent and shook her not quite naked breasts in his face. No response, no reaction whatsoever. Which wasn't good. Shilo worked quickly at the buttons down his shirt, grinning as more of his body was revealed. She pushed him down, and he was stiff, not in the way she was used to. She looked down at his face, handsome, naturally, really handsome. He wasn't relaxing. Her hair fell down around them, wickedly full curls.

"I want to kiss you," she said.

Her face lowered, lips parting, and she kissed him. It wasn't right. Their mouths fit together, but it didn't feel good like she thought it would have. Shilo had an awful, nagging sense that this was the wrong piece to her puzzle. He kissed back, and their legs entwined.

The next second found her harshly shoved on her back beside him. She sat up, confused. What had just happened?

"I'm sorry, Shilo. I can't." He ran his hands through his hair. "This can't happen. We're friends."

"Oh." Shilo looked at him. "I thought you had a crush on me. Didn't you?"

"Years ago, before I met Amber. I didn't mean to lead you on."

Her whole world was formed on lies. Always had been and, it seemed, always would be. Now she couldn't decipher the truth. Couldn't see who was trustworthy and couldn't trust her instincts. The floor was falling from beneath her, shattering with all her expectations. As she looked down on the last man alive who she thought could be trusted and talked to and kissed... except kissing him was like kissing her brother, if she'd had a brother. There was only one man she wanted, and he couldn't be there for her, because he was a liar and a freak and-

"You really love her, don't you?" she said quietly.

Leonard Slates was earnest and handsome, standing for love and goodness. Hope. He was a force that she couldn't wear down and corrupt. He would always be there for Amber, and together, they would be unstoppable and unopposed. "I do," he breathed. "I really do love her."

Her hand surreptitiously slid under her skirt, to the instrument tucked into her garter. He did not notice, because she was looking into his eyes as she felt a haze of tears obstruct her vision. Still, she could see enough to sink her knife into his heart. It was one fast movement, before either of them could really tell what had happened. The dark thing inside her had done it and that had exorcised it, and she stared in horror at what she'd done.

He gasped and raised both hands to the hilt, sticking out of his chest. He choked and gasped and cried out, and blood bubbled up from his lips.

"I'm so sorry, Leonard," she blubbered. "Leave it. Leave it. Oh, God," she wailed when her hands joined his, the red pulsing between their intertwining fingers. "Are you hurt? Are you hurt?" she asked, which was asinine. He was dying.

"Amber," he said, little rivulets of blood at the corners of his mouth. His eyes were rolling white, a froth of pain and death. "Amber."

"You were so good. You were so _good_. Listen, listen, do you have any Zydrate?" she asked desperately. If she could take away the pain, that'd help, wouldn't it? "Do you?"

"I... I..." Tears rolled from the outside corner of his eye and then they closed.

 


	10. Chapter 10

Expert hands measured the inseam. Luigi liked having suits tailored to his exact specifications. There was a mathematical order of sewing stubborn fabric to fit the frame of a man, especially a powerhouse such as Luigi Largo. Three mirrors were set up before him, endlessly reflecting the mirrors in the back of the room and its occupants: Luigi, sneering, tall and proud; the tailor, bespectacled, bent with a needle and thread in his mouth; gophers, twittering and largely useless.

And so fucking what if it wasn't normal for tailoring to happen at three in the morning. He had nothing better to do except jerk off, and that got old. For whatever idiotic reason, Luigi couldn't get to sleep. He ended up pacing and snarling at people that weren't there. Not in the crazy way, just that he'd yell for Amber when Amber happened to be knocked out cold in her pink, canopied nest. He wanted to wring her neck. It was her fault that all of this was happening. She'd never been able to share.

Fucking insomnia. He'd never had it before. The session of folding and pinning was interrupted with a phone call. Her voice crackled through, soft, quiet as a mouse, and needy, needing him, needing his assistance. He took it in the other room, out of range from nosy worms scavenging for gossip about him. There was no mention whatsoever of their ridiculous quarrel. All she said was this: _Please... Bring your knives and rubber gloves. Don't say where you're going._

What she didn't give was any explanation. She didn't need to. Mystified, he dismissed his crew and picked up his car keys. Something had gone wrong. Something had gone wrong, and he was the person she'd called for help.

* * *

Could've been a murder scene. The lighting was right. The setting was right. It was grim and ominous, but substantially less gory than your average repossession; it was only the participants that made it startling. Luigi tensed, and his hand dropped the bag containing his collection of knives. Shilo Wallace was on the bed, along with heavily bloodstained sheets and Leonard Slates. At first, Luigi thought they were both dead. She was on her side, hands clasped with the stabbed body to her right. Both bodies were pale- except that was the norm for Shilo. Both didn't move as he edged, step by wary step, to the foot of the bed.

Shit, how could she be dead? His bugged-out eyes were glued to her. There was a coating of blood on her hands, splattered on her torso and bra. She was breathing. Relief spiked through his heart. Not letting himself acknowledge it while there was a crisis to manage, he touched her calf. She didn't open her peepers. He yanked her down toward him. At that stimulus, she unfroze, sitting up as much she could with one leg in the air.

"What the fuck is this? What happened?" he yelled at her, tightening his fingers where they joined around her leg. There was a bruise there, one he hadn't been responsible for. Someone else had inflicted it on her. The piece of shit who lay dead on the dirty sheets? She flinched at the pressure.

There was mascara streaked under her red, teary eyes. She didn't struggle. She said, "Thank you for coming."

He eyed the knife sticking out of the dead man's chest.

Luigi wasn't against random acts of violence, in theory. In practice, you were supposed to be selective about who you stabbed. Just anyone tended to do. Peons. Underlings. Vermin that clawed about in the muck in the Largo's wake. And even Luigi had twinges of guilt when called out on his actions. Shilo. Shilo, what had she done?

He let the disgust on his face speak for itself.

"I didn't want to kill him," she said, her voice fracturing girlishly.

"Then why did you, huh? Did he rape you?" he snapped.

"No. He didn't want me. He was loyal to Amber."

"That's it? You shanked him because he wouldn't pork you?" he said.

"No!" She tried to get up, managing to shove her elbows behind her ribs on the mattress to support herself, enough to look more at him than up at him. "I'm crazy, okay? There's been this voice in my head. It's not me," she burst. "It's not! I didn't want to kill him. Whatever it was, it's gone now. It's too late... He's dead."

He let go of her.

Softly, "Can you help me?"

He couldn't say no to her. He picked up the corpse and placed it in the bathtub. Shilo unpacked the knives, cold and quiet. When she placed the instruments on the tile where he knelt, grumbling about his creaking knees, he took pity on the still girl. "You're crazy. We all got our problems. I'll help you out."

She nodded, and he put an arm around her, abruptly bringing her close. Fuck. About to dismember his half-sister's former boyfriend, and all Luigi could think about was how good it felt to have her here. He let himself feel the relief that she hadn't gone through with it, and that she hadn't gone running to him because she was a damsel in distress, like he thought he wanted her to be, but because he could do the impossible, disgusting thing that she couldn't. He felt, also, the fear that this could be only the beginning, and she could have worse things planned for his broken family. It was Shilo that pushed away first, to flick a speck of water from under her eyes. In doing so, she dappled blood on her cheek.

"When did this start?" he asked.

"A few months ago. At first, it was just when I looked in mirrors. And then she wasn't in the mirror anymore. Luigi, it was like a darker part of me, some fragment that should never have seen the light of day." Solemnly, she stated, "It's gone. I wish this dreadful night had never happened."

"You mean, you wish he'd climbed on top of you and made you squeal," he corrected.

She colored slightly. "That was a mistake, too, actually."

"No shit? I thought you wanted to screw with my screw-up sister's head by taking away her boytoy."

This elicited a subtle shake of her pretty head, rocking the loose curls. In his thoughts, he railed against her in a frustrating attempt to stamp out this new image of her. Cheap whore. Lying bitch. Tramp. Murderer. For all the times she'd gotten up and left him- for letting herself be a whore when it wasn't necessary- for making him hate his father- For all these things, he didn't want to bring himself to believe her.

She shuddered hugely, undid the straps around one pristine scalpel, and stepped into the tub with it tightly in hand. Looking away from the dead man, she took Leonard's stiff arm and put the sharp edge to his scapula. Her fingers choked the handle.

"Wait, I brought you some damn gloves," he protested, standing.

"Isn't there enough blood on my hands?" she wailed. "What's a little more? I made a huge mistake, Luigi. Please listen to me."

He watched her saw through flesh and muscle and tendon, the nauseating, bloody work he'd been called here to do. She had to look where she cut, and it brought him some satisfaction that she forced herself through the task at hand in spite of her obvious queasiness and reluctance. She was strong when she felt weak. She broke down, then got back up again with new commitment and resolve. This was, he realized, how this broke orphan had survived three years in this city, on her own. He let himself admire that quality. In admiration, he felt something else stirring inside, uncomfortably akin to lust.

"So talk."

"Okay, I tried to seduce him. It was working, too. And then... I lost control of my body. It happened like that," she said, snapping her fingers. "I needed you. If you can ever forgive me... If _Amber_ can ever forgive me... I've never been more sorry. Luigi, even if he had lived, I don't think I could have gone through with it.

"I've been alone all these years. Didn't know how to connect with anyone, and didn't want to try. I..." She stopped to break off the arm and cast it down on the porcelain. "Do you know what I've been doing, when I'd go out and night? I went home, sat in my room, and read. No one paid me to do that, I can promise you that. You made your own conclusions. You filled in the blank without my help." Frustration swung her shoulder sharply, chopping at the other arm. "You called me a whore. You never treated me like one. I'm crazy. I have few principles. I wanted to steal Amber's boyfriend to make you and Amber jealous. Instead..."

"Hold up. You wouldn't have gone through with it?" he pressed.

"Three guesses why," she said, with a trace of her trademark sarcasm.

"Then, the bruise on your leg...?"

"I hit it on the wall in the dark."

The blood and truth had splattered everywhere. He glared without any menace behind it. Her truth had winded him, and he barreled on, picking her up. She squealed, the knife flying from her hand. It clattered on the floor, quickly forgotten as he sidestepped it. He flung her onto the bed and kissed her, kissed her mouth, tasted the salt of her tears on her lips. She wasn't clean. She was wearing blood. It didn't matter or register. He moved to her slender neck and sucked hard, not to leave a bruise, but to create noises, noises he'd never wanted to hear. Luigi wanted to make Shilo writhe in pleasure. When Shilo was a girl, on stage, his unwelcome instinct had been to protect her. As a woman in his bed, his instincts took over again, harnessed by this desire to make her feel...

He ripped at her bra and latched on to her breast, suckling gently at first, then harder. She curled her fingers in his hair and gasped his name. He descended, kissing and clawing, raking a trail down her soft body. Her skirt was pushed up around her hips and her eyes widened as he planted soft kisses on her inner thigh.

"Are you sure?" she breathed.

She gave, and never received. Certain aspects of sex were overlooked because of his germaphobia. He threw away their rules in that moment, when he removed her underwear with his teeth. He placed his hands on her knees and spread her legs, in awe as he surveyed what lay between, bright and wet and petaled. Luigi breathed her in.

"What about the sheets? They're-"

He huffed and tore them off, ripped them out from under her. "Shut up now." He kissed her, lapped greedily. At the first brush of his mouth on her wet lips, Shilo gasped and arched her back wildly, making it hard for Luigi to continue his ministrations. "Stay _put_ ," he growled, gripping her hips and pushing her back down onto the mattress.

"Can't- help it!" she panted, gripping first the pillows, then his hair, drawing him closer. "Oh, God! I... I..."

He thrust his tongue inside her, and she cried out, her heartbeat in her voice. He didn't feel her orgasm; she was throbbing hard from the start. No, he heard the beginning of it. Her gasps went quiet, her body stilled. Relying partly on instinct, partly with that old bitch common sense, he removed his tongue and added his finger. She was wet, making the slide easy, and he beckoned. She sat up and clutched at his shoulder, burying her head against his chest. He touched her, faster and faster. Finally, she rocked, leaned her head back, sighed, "There, stop, that's it."

Luigi watched, eyes heavy-lidded, as she laid back and pulled him over her. She held him as she caught her breath. Her skin. He liked the smell of her skin even without perfume and soap to hide reality. Her chest gently moving under his was warm and comforting. His erection was freed, and she guided him inside her. They moved together, her legs moving closer together to increase the delicious squeeze around him. He didn't feel the need to fuck the daylights out of her. It was clear, from the look in her eyes to their every languid movement, that they'd be doing this again, and again, and again.

He pulled out and came in hot, thick spurts on the mattress, his hands tightening on her shoulders. "Guess we weren't done slopping up the sheets," she breathed.

* * *

They washed each other in the sink and finished dismembering the body. Bleach removed the blood from the bathroom, and the sheet held the pieces of Slates. This was snuck out to Luigi's car. Luckily, Shilo had a change of clothes, clean of gore. It had been late when Shilo and Leonard got in, and it had been an unofficial visit. There weren't witnesses, only a credit card report. It was easy to erase the incident, since Luigi was properly motivated. They ditched the evidence in a back-alley dumpster, parked his car in an empty garage, and slept through the morning. He held her to him, her head by his mechanical heart.

Her lips were by his ear. Softly, she said, "Luigi, wake up. You have to take me to Amber's surgical center."

He yawned. "Uhnn, why? It's so fucking early."

"It's late, actually. Quarter to five, and her appointment's at six. We can get coffee on the way." Fresh from deep sleep, her skin glowed, and her hair was lightly strewn about her face and down her shoulders. Lines were erased from her expression and, a glance in the sideview mirror confirmed, from his, too.

"What's this all about?"

"Know what I said last night, while we were butchering?" Strange how the urge to stab and wring necks had dissipated after that. It had tied violence into the rough un-niceties of reality. "About putting things right?"

"Yeah," he said, stretching and putting the car into gear.

"So let's go." She tugged her seatbelt across her waist and buckled it. The radio informed them that the city's air quality wasn't abominable that afternoon, and they drove with the top down. The wind carried them on and invigorated them before Luigi ever got a sip of coffee. The coffee did help, however.

The clinic was blinding white, accented with green, and the people working there spoke politely to Luigi and ignored Shilo. She was anonymous.

At her behest, he signed her in- she had an appointment under the pseudonym Selma Weatherly. In the clinic's room, she changed into a paper-thin, shapeless blue cotton gown and waited for the surGEN. Luigi crossed his arms and leaned on the wall. The caffeine was buzzing in his veins. Shilo was calm, hands in her lap, unsmiling. "I needed an alibi. I scheduled a minor surgery to coincide with hers. She was going to go under. I'd receive a local anesthetic, not enough to put me out." She held out her hand; he hesitated, then clasped. "Listen. I switched the vials. She'll get enough to make her relapse. What you have to do is find the Zydrate and switch our labels." Her fingers, intertwined with his, tightened, and she trembled.

"I can't do that," he said. His sister for his... lover? What had Shilo Wallace become to him? "Don't ask me to."

"Let me make this right. Tell her what happened, and tell her I am so sorry." She stood on tiptoe and hugged him. "Forget conquering. Share GeneCo. I didn't have family. You do. Make it work." A kiss was pressed to his temple.

"If it was a strong dose for Amber, what will it do to you?" he asked, fiercely upset as his arms crushed her close.

"I don't know. I've never had it," she said with cool resolve. He let go.

"Don't do this. You sound like you're fucking giving up. Why the fuck would you say that? Any of it? Like you've made your peace?" His pitch was rising in anguish. Why was she doing this to him? Even if it was so damn noble and intelligent. He wanted that for her. Better than cheap moves and pulling the wool over people's eyes. Shilo was trying to do the right thing. He didn't have it in him to deny her that.

He kissed her fearfully, that long kiss where one or both parties have been sentenced to death or lifelong imprisonment. He held her face and felt wetness on his cheeks, wasn't sure whose tears they were. He did cry easily.

The door opened and he let her go with extreme reluctance. "Oh, sorry. Miss Weatherly?"

Luigi hastily turned away and hid his tears, then blustered out of the room. Shilo smiled and greeted the surGEN. She touched her hair and said, "I don't mind being a brunette, but black is so fashionable." The closing door shut out the rest of her enthusiastic words.

He yelled at a GENtern to take him to the rooms with "all the Zydrate, don't make me fucking ask twice or you'll be fucking sorry." Her platforms clicked as she took him there, and left him alone.

The Largos had access to all the Zydrate they wanted, now that Rotti wasn't around to cut them off. They'd weaned themselves of the bad habit, like it was nail biting or public masturbation. Pavi handled the pain of his face changes with the distraction of sexual stimulation; Luigi took pain pills without addictive properties; Amber had minor doses, enough to numb without pushing herself over the precipice of temptation. And it was going to stay that way. Her sobriety. Shaking, his mouth open, he found the vials for Amber Sweet and Selma Weatherly and switched the labels.

He checked his watch. Six fifteen.

* * *

Scalpel. Needle. Thread. Amber watched them cut and tuck plastic and machinery and lab-grown flesh in her cheeks with a hand-held mirror and felt nothing at all.

"You're doing great, Miss Sweet," her doctor said, squeezing her hand. A basic comfort that she didn't need to pay extra for.

"Why, thank you. How are my cheekbones?"

"Fine, just fine. Everything looks good from here."

"My wedding's tomorrow," she said. "I'm going to be a beautiful bride."

"Yes, you are. Let me finish up here."

Her brother was in her recovery room before she even got there, his head in his hands. She didn't talk for hours. The whole conversation with the doctor could have been a hallucination. Zydrate hallucinations were enough to put her off going back to it. After these hours, and Leonard hadn't shown hide nor hair, or even left a damn message, she began to worry. One of her eunuchs came in to fix her tangerine-colored hair and deliver her messages. Confirmations of venues, financial reports, job gains in certain sectors.

"Brother," she said.

He explained it all.

* * *

His hand was in hers. The heart monitor was slow, and the IV bag was almost empty. A manicured, long-fingered hand was on his shoulder. "Don't let it shock you."

Her eyes opened gradually.

"So you are awake," Amber said. "Guess it was too much to hope for karma." Luigi glared at her. "What? It was a joke."

Shilo squeezed his hand. Her eyes slowly moved from brother to sister. She became aware of a mask over her face. She moved her free hand to remove it. Luigi stopped her.

"Cut it out. That's oxygen."

She stopped. Her eyebrows furrowed.

"I thought you died. Really died this time." He bent his head over her hand. "I did what you said. Amber knows everything."

"So crazy runs in the family." Amber, in subdued grey and little makeup, moved closer and bent to put her face closer to Shilo's, just to be sure she could see her. "You did the right thing. Eventually. I spoke to my dear brothers about this, and you might as well know. I need time away."

"For her health. Which, thanks to you, she has," Luigi said with a stern look at his little sister. There was more authority in his posture. He'd become more of an adult in the time that had elapsed. Since Shilo's near death. Since he'd changed his relationship with his sister. They'd once been so petty.

"Anyway. I'll leave you two alone." Amber kissed the top of Shilo's head.

And they were alone in the room with the medical equipment bringing her back from the near dead.

Luigi looked at her. "Pavi sends his love."

Her eyes crinkled in amusement. She tried to talk behind the mask and couldn't; her throat was chalk dry.

His thumb traced the lines on her palm like he was reading her fortune. They stayed that way a long time, until a nurse brought her water and she sipped it through a straw. They talked a little. The details of the future could be ironed out after she left the hospital where she'd been transferred. GeneCo, their respective pasts, what to do with Pavi- it could all wait. When visiting hours were over, he removed her mask, kissed her, nevermind the coma breath, and left. He'd be back, he promised, the next morning. Luigi Largo kept his promises.

 


End file.
